I'm Not Going to Apologize
by Riselike-BreakofDawn
Summary: "Don't you have any self preservation?" he asked quietly... McGee saves the lives of his team, and Tony is beyond angry. See, Tim doesn't care about his own life as much as he should. And DiNozzo is tired of losing people he cares about. Not slash, just fluffy brotherly love.
1. Chapter 1

Tony sat in the waiting room, staring at the blood on his hands. He wasn't sure whose blood it was. Ziva's, probably. Maybe a little of his own. He should probably get that washed off, he thinks. By now it had dried up and was flaking and cracking in a way that made his stomach turn. There was a lot of it.

Several nurses had seen his blood-covered hands and ushered him into a room to be looked at by a doctor, despite his protests that it wasn't his blood, that he wasn't hurt, and that he just wanted to sit in the waiting room alone. Gibbs was on his way to the hospital- he had stayed behind at the crime scene to round up suspects for questioning. Tony had wanted to help, but the boss had seen his expression and sent the senior agent ahead. In hindsight, DiNozzo realized that he'd probably kill anyone who crossed his path, he was so angry. It was better to leave the suspects to Gibbs.

The thing about a crime-scene-turned-shootout so late at night...at least there was no one to bother him in the waiting room.

.

The sound of footsteps faded into earshot, and DiNozzo tensed. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. Just his luck, the object of his anger was the man approaching him, his best friend at any other time but now. Tim rounded the corner, and stopped when he saw Tony, who looked up at him. McGee tried to smile in encouragement, but DiNozzo stared at him with so much contempt and fury that his grin faltered slightly.

"Not in the mood, McGee."

"Tony-"

"No, Tim. Shut up."

The younger agent sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't have nearly as much of Ziva's blood on his hands as DiNozzo did, but some was still there. He came to sit next to Tony, but sat two chairs down, to give the angry senior agent his space.

"This isn't my fault, you know."

"Really?" the older man spat. "Because it was your call. You made the choice. And look where we are."

Tim turned his head to look at his friend. "I'm not going to apologize."

DiNozzo shot up out of his seat and paced across the room. He wanted to throw something, particularly at McGee's head.

"You almost got us killed-"

"And if I hadn't made the decision I did, then we'd all be dead right now," Tim said calmly.

Tony turned to look at him, stirred by McGee's calm, gentle tone. As if it was that easy to stay relaxed at a time like this.

"I'd rather be here waiting for news than on one of Ducky's slabs." Tony winced. Tim's big green eyes were so innocent they were almost playful. "Look, Tony. Ziva's gonna be fine. It was just a graze. We both saw it. She was barely wincing when they put her on the gurney. She'll recover fully."

DiNozzo finally lost what was left of his temper. "That's not the point, Tim! Just because Ziva was hurt doesn't mean you had to be so stupid! And what if your plan didn't work? They would've turned on us! And it's not like Ziva could've helped us, lying on the ground, bleeding!"

Tim looked at him with eyebrows raised, obviously seeing through Tony's blames and accusations. The senior agent deflated. He moved to cover his eyes with his hand, but pulled it away when he remembered the blood on them. "Don't you have any self preservation?" he said quietly. McGee finally dropped his cheery attitude and frowned.

"Tony," he said. "It was the only way to make sure they didn't shoot you and Ziva. They had their guns turned on us."

"That's no excuse to go running off into the woods firing your gun and yelling," Tony said. "Just so that they'd follow you."

"It worked, didn't it?" Tim grinned.

"I've never wanted to head slap you so hard," Tony said. "You're missing the point."

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing?" the junior agent asked earnestly.

He would have. But he hated the idea of his best friend taking such a risk.

"Ziva's going to kill you when she gets out of there," DiNozzo said, tilting his head in the direction of the operating room. He knew that Ziva would be fine, but they were taking such a long time...how long did it really take to remove a bullet from someone's thigh?

"Everything's going to be fine, Tony," Tim insisted, noticing his coworker's worried expression. "Really."

The doors to Ziva's room opened, and a doctor came out, still in his besmirched scrubs. "You're with Agent David?" he asked.

"Yes," Tony said, rising.

"She's going to be fine," the doctor smiled. "Everything went well, she's sleeping right now- we gave her something for the pain. She should be able to go home when she wakes up."

"Thanks," Tony said, holding back a sigh of relief.

"See? I told you," Tim said once the man had left. DiNozzo wanted to respond, but was interrupted by the sound of the door opening at the far end of the hall. Gibbs came into view, with a coffee in each hand.

"Oh, thank god, boss. You read my mind," Tony said, eagerly taking the cup from the team leader.

"Any news?" Gibbs asked.

"Ziva's fine. She's sleeping now." Gibbs nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

"And McGee?" Tony asked, hoarse. Gibbs looked at the empty waiting room around them, trying to avoid Tony's gaze.

"No news yet," Gibbs said quietly. "He's still missing."

Tony, once again, wanted to throw something. He hated the idea of his friend and brother, lost in the woods, injured. Possibly bleeding to..."Godammit. We should be out there, looking for him!" Jethro nodded.

"Go, DiNozzo. Find him." Tony grabbed his jacket and threw it on, running down the hallway and out the door. Gibbs would be there for Ziva when she woke up. Tony was going to find Tim before the night was over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Long time no update. I'm sorry to everyone who's followed and has been waiting for new chapters. When I posted this story I intended to make it a quick one shot with an epilogue, but it got a...polarized response so I'm going to make it just a little longer. (Only a handful of chapters.) Before I continue, I'd just like to thank the reviewers so far. Some people were a little annoyed, I can tell, but yes, Tony was just imagining Tim, like he did with Kate. I probably should have updated right away so that everyone would have been more clear on that, but thank you to the people who got it and appreciated it. Also, yes, Gibbs would usually be the one charging after McGee when he went missing instead of DiNozzo, but this is a friendship fic between Tony and Tim. That being said, please enjoy the story and let me know what you think.**

...

The whole ride back to the crime scene, Tony continued to imagine McGee, and continued to yell at him for his unnecessary nobility. The Tim in his head was far more nonchalant and blasé than the real Tim, but that might have had something to do with the fact that DiNozzo had seen his friend act more reckless and wild in that evening than in the entire decade that he'd known him. This new impression of his coworker manifested itself in his stressed mind. He'd done the same thing with Kate when she died- he'd thought of her as far more disapproving and taunting towards him than she'd been in real life. But he had to stop doing that…as far as he knew, Tim wasn't dead; there was no reason for him to show up and fill Tony with guilt.

Gibbs had called for backup the moment the gunfight started, so the reinforcement team was already there, investigating the crime scene. The team leader approached the agent as soon as he stepped out of the car.

"Agent DiNozzo."

"Any word on McGee?"

"Not yet, we sent a dog out but he lost the trail a mile and a half from here. We did apprehend two of your shooters and finished up the original crime scene investigation. You said that there were three, right?"

"Yeah, two of them ran after McGee…only the one stayed behind. We got him when he stopped shooting to reload."

"Right, Gibbs passed him over to us before he left to check on you at the hospital. We got the other one while he was running through the woods. Any idea as to why they were so intent on catching Agent McGee?"

"He had something with him…he found a flash drive on the victim…I guess that's why they showed up in the first place. To get it back."

"Not the brightest crooks in the world. We're searching for the last one right now."

"Great, thanks," Tony said wearily, grabbing a flashlight and turning to observe the other beams of light that were sweeping the area for anything that might indicate McGee's whereabouts. "I'm going out with them. Keep Gibbs posted, too."

The guilt was at this point eating him alive. He wanted to smack Tim upside the head, sure, but he knew full well that if Tim hadn't done what he did, none of them would have lived through the night.

….

It was supposed to be a simple crime scene investigation. (At midnight, sure, but they'd had later assignments.) The man was a petty officer, shot at point blank range and, according to Ducky, dragged and dumped in the woods no less than two days before.

A quick examination of the surrounding area yielded quite the array of evidence. Ziva found a wallet near the victim's feet; Tim found a flash drive in his hand.

The body was half hidden by a massive fallen tree, which explained why it had taken park rangers two days to notice him, even though he wasn't a dozen yards from a popular hiking trail.

They should have been finished with the crime scene within an hour, but things took a turn for the worse when, in their sweep of the nearby area, Ziva and Tony ran into three armed men. It wasn't clear whether they had been the actual killers of the petty officer, but they'd definitely played a part in his demise, and had returned to the scene to one reason or another.

A vicious fight broke out in the stillness of the forest. While running for cover, Ziva was shot in the leg. Tony and McGee both dove to help her, immediately putting pressure to stop the bleeding, but a bullet whizzed between their faces, and Tim jerked backwards, taking cover. DiNozzo pulled Ziva out of the line of fire. Gibbs, meanwhile, had instinctively reached for Ducky, and now had the elderly man and Palmer safe behind the thick trunk of a different tree not ten feet from where McGee stood. They were pinned down as a hail of bullets flew by, shooting back to no avail.

McGee's heart raced. Ziva's blood slicked his hands, making it difficult to grip his gun, so he tore off his crime scene gloves. He could see Palmer and Ducky being shielded by Gibbs. And there were Tony and Ziva, pinned down only a few yards away under the thick log that had concealed their victim. DiNozzo was trying his damnedest to stop her leg from bleeding, while also attempting to return fire without getting himself killed. The agents had been taken by surprise, and they were outnumbered, outgunned, and almost blind without their flashlights. (It looked like only Palmer had held on to his in the firefight.)

And suddenly there was a rush of clarity in McGee's mind. This didn't happen often in stressful situations; usually he gave over to the purely analytical side of himself, acting only on autopilot until the threat was neutralized. But they were only a few short minutes into this ordeal and with a strong, horrified burst of intuition, Tim could see the outcome of this little battle.

They were going to die. Gibbs was currently calling for backup, but who knows when they'd get there. (It was the middle of the night- was anyone awake to back them up at all?) They would run out of ammo long before their unseen attackers did. They had combat-grade machine guns. The agents had hand-pieces, and less guns than people to defend. Even in the best of settings there was little way out of this. With Ziva down, Tony trying to help her, and Gibbs working to protect the medical examiners, it was clear that no one had even a shot at gaining the upper hand.

Except for McGee.

Without thinking, Tim grasped the flash drive in one hand and tightened his hold on his weapon. The little flash drive was what they'd come for, he realized. They wouldn't have waited two days to come back for the body- they'd forgotten the flash drive and it had taken two days for them to notice it was missing.

With a deep breath, McGee shot out from behind the tree. But instead of running towards his teammates, he ran the other way entirely.

"Hey!" he shouted, and saw three beams of light point in his direction. Before the confused criminals tried to shoot at him, he continued.

"This what you want?" he yelled, holding the drive up for them to see. A bullet was sent in his direction, but he had anticipated it and ducked out the way ahead of time.

"Come and get it!" he said, running deeper into the woods, firing a couple shots back at the men. It was a stupid, risky move, and McGee knew it. Leading three heavily armed thugs into unfamiliar wilderness was always a bad idea. At the very worse, only one would follow him, leaving the team down another man. It wasn't smart, but it was a plan, which was better than hiding behind trees and waiting for death to claim them. And yes, this stupid diversion was probie-level recklessness. There was a very good chance that running through the dark, firing off shots to pull focus from his team was going to end up with him dead. But it didn't even occur to him to worry about it. It was dangerous, yes, but Tim didn't actually care.

Bullets flew past him, and one grazed his shoulder, the shock of the pain causing him to stumble. But he kept going, no longer bothering to fire back because he was sure to miss. Since McGee wasn't weighed down by heavy guns and had a head start, he put quite a bit of distance between himself and however many of them were following him. He knew there was at least one, because he could hear the footsteps and the occasional gunshot behind him. He must have run a mile before it occurred to him just what he'd gotten himself into.

He hadn't thought this through. To be quite honest, this plan had ended up with him dead, and now that he had gotten away without dying, he wasn't sure what to do. Assuming he'd saved his team, they would have to get Ziva to the hospital, and Ducky and Jimmy the hell out of dodge. There was no coming back for him until they were safe. Yes, Tony or Gibbs might stay behind, but-

McGee's thoughts were interrupted when the ground suddenly seemed to end, and he fell forward. It wasn't that he'd tripped, but that the land had become very steep very quickly. It was only a small ravine, a gully at the most, but in the dark it seemed like he rolled and tumbled for ages before he reached the bottom. His head hit a sharp rock and Tim was unconscious before his body came to a stop.

...

He woke up to the darkness, which meant one of two things: either he'd only been out for a short time, or he'd been out for a whole day. McGee sat up despite his body's aching protests and hissed when his head erupted in pain. Stifling a groan, he reached into his pocket, ignoring the itching in his arm. His phone had plenty of battery, thank god, and he saw that an hour and a half had passed.

There were no missed calls, which made him deflate a little. Where was his team? Were they ok? ...Maybe they were at the hospital getting checked out. Maybe they were out looking for him, or arresting the gunmen. A tiny voice in the back of his head suggested that perhaps they were dead, and his stupid heroics had only made things worse. He was fine with the idea of being responsible for his own demise, but McGee could not handle the thought of his family murdered in the dark because of his idiocy.

His whole body shaking, Tim pressed on Gibbs' contact and listened while the phone rang. Usually he would have to wait several moments before his boss would answer, mostly because the senior agent didn't care about his phone and kept it only in his general vicinity. But he must have had it in his hand, because Jethro's voice could be heard before the first ring was finished.

"McGee?"

"Hey, Boss."

"Where are you?" the senior agent asked.

Tim looked around. "Uh…I think I fell into a ditch. Probably a mile or so from where I…ran. Is everyone ok?"

Gibbs was careful not to let how he was feeling drip into his voice. It was an even mix of fury, pride and worry for his agent, though the younger man's weary, faraway voice was giving an edge to the worry. McGee was of course going to get his ass kicked for pulling this stunt, but getting him home safe was the main priority at the moment. Not bothering to answer the question, Jethro countered with "Are you hurt, McGee?"

Yes, he was. He probably had a small concussion, and there was blood caked on the back of his head. The graze on his arm, now that he looked at it, was more serious than he'd thought. It wasn't so much a graze as a direct hit to the muscle in his arm. And what was worse, it was still bleeding. It was sluggish, but there was definitely a steady flow of blood. With the adrenaline of running through the woods, he hadn't even noticed that he'd actually been shot. But he noticed now, and it hurt like hell.

"I'll survive, Boss. Is Ziva…?"

"She's fine, Tim. Doctors just finished on her leg and she's sleeping."

So they were safe at the hospital. Thank god.

"Did you catch the guys that attacked us?"

There was a pause so uncharacteristic of the older man that McGee knew something was wrong.

"Two of them. There's one more out there."

Tim's heart rate jumped, but he pushed the fear down. "He's probably gone by now, Boss. They must have had a car around here…but I have my gun."

Never mind the fact that there was only one bullet left in the magazine.

"DiNozzo's out looking for you," Gibbs said. "A backup team's with him. I'm on my way."

"Ok. I'll call Tony," McGee said, struggling to stand. His left ankle gave out and he went down on his knee with a grunt, jostling his wounded arm.

"McGee?"

"I'm alright, Boss."

They disconnected the conversation and Tim had his cell text his location to DiNozzo's phone before calling. Like Gibbs, Tony answered immediately.

"Tim!"

"Hey Tony," McGee said, exhausted. His whole body hurt at this point and he resisted the urge to sit down again.

"I just got your text. Stay where you are, we're coming your way."

"Gibbs told me that there's still one of them out here," the younger man said.

"Yeah," DiNozzo said. "We think he's gone by now, but…"

"I'll be careful, Tony."

It was apparently the wrong thing to say, because the older agent said, "If you're hurt I'm gonna kill you, McGee."

With a breathless laugh, Tim doubled over. "Are you close?"

"My maps app says you're twenty minutes away. I gotta hang up, my phone's about to die and we'll never find you if it does."

"Ok, see you in twenty minutes," McGee said, hanging up. When silence fell over the forest again, the agent ran a hand over his face and wondered how he was going to get himself out of the ditch with his malfunctioning ankle and bleeding arm.

It was a long process. The slightest amount of weight on his foot caused a bolt of pain to shoot up his leg, so every movement had to be slow and careful. Once he pulled himself onto even ground, McGee had to sit there and catch his breath. The darkness seemed thicker than it had been before, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. There was still one man out there, possibly looking for him, and he only had one shot left in his gun. It was enough to make him nauseous. Or was that because of his headache?

He could hear footsteps in the distance, and he stood, holding his weapon at the ready. It was probably Tony, but if not, then he was sure he would die, but he planned on taking this bastard down with him.

A light shined in his face, hurting his head like crazy, but he stared into the light, eyes wide, gun drawn.

"Woah, it's just us, McGee."

Tony was flanked by several armed NCIS agents, one of whom reported their location into a radio. Tim lowered his hands, ignoring the pain it caused his arm.

DiNozzo had planned on immediately chewing his friend out for being so stupid, but the younger man was more ragged than he'd expected, and all of his anger flew out the window at the wild expression he wore.

"Were you hit?" Tony asked, moving to inspect Tim's red-painted sleeve. One of the members of the search party got out a small first aid kit and began to attend to the wound, wrapping it up so that it would slow the bleeding until they got to the NCIS emergency transport vehicle.

"It's not that bad," McGee said, even though it certainly felt that bad. "My ankle, though…I think it's broken. I fell into that ditch and hit my head."

"No wonder you didn't call," DiNozzo said, apologetic. "We would have found you sooner, but you're the only one of us who knows how to track a phone…anyone else that could have was home in bed."

"It's ok. Though if you don't mind waiting to kill me until we get to a hospital, I'd appreciate it. I'm pretty sure I'm hurt a little," McGee said, his eyelids fluttering.

"You probably have a concussion," someone said, but Tim's ears were ringing. Why was he so tired? Why did Tony look so worried? The effects of his injuries hit him full force and he was falling again. Numbness overtook him and he was once more pulled into unconsciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow! I was not expecting such a positive response to the story being continued- thank you all so much! Warning: suggestions of depression in this chapter and later ones.**

...

It would be nice if he could go three months without ending up in a hospital for some reason.

Tony would settle for limiting his hospital visits to once a day…he was sitting in the same chair he had occupied only a couple hours before and things hadn't gotten much better since then.

When McGee had passed out it was simultaneously a surprise and a logical outcome of what his body had been through. DiNozzo had hit his head too many times to count, and the resulting unconsciousness was familiar to him, so he knew Tim was in trouble even before the younger man's eyes slid shut and his legs gave out- what was scary was the blood all over the back of his head. Luckily the search party was with him or Tony would have wasted precious time trying to carry McGee to the car. Gibbs arrived at the same time they reached the edge of the woods and immediately turned around and escorted the transport van to the hospital.

It was funny how angry DiNozzo had been at McGee, and how he'd planned on yelling at his friend for risking his life…some gratitude that would be. And as imaginary Tim argued, he _would_ do the same. In fact, they all did similar stupid things on the regular, always born from the agents' loyalty for each other. Hell, Tony and Ziva once refused to clear the blast zone from a bomb, choosing instead to stay with Gibbs. Years later, McGee did the same thing. The three men ran a suicide mission into Somalia to avenge Ziva's presumed death. Gibbs was always the last man out of a dangerous situation at the risk of his own life. The list went on and on.

But there was something bugging Tony about this new addition to that list. Maybe it was the way McGee was all too willing to throw himself into the line of fire…maybe it was the expression Tim had on his face when he was found in the woods: wild-eyed, ready to fight. DiNozzo's gut was unsettled by the whole thing, but he reasoned it all away rather quickly. McGee had a concussion and had been looking out for an attacker when they'd shined that glaring searchlight in his eyes. It probably worsened his headache and his panic; of course he reacted the way he did. And again, they all took turns throwing caution to the wind in stressful situations, right? It wasn't a good thing, but for Team Gibbs it was practically as common as Ducky telling one of his stories or Abby drinking a Caf-Pow! at work.

These were the sort of thoughts his tired mind turned over while they waited for news. Ducky and Jimmy were checking on Ziva, so it was just Gibbs and Tony in the waiting room when the nurse came to talk to them about their injured friend.

"Agent McGee's going to be fine. He had a couple of bad cuts that we stitched up, including one on the back of his head. His ankle is definitely broken, and they're putting it in a cast right now. As for his gunshot wound, we closed the nicked vein it hit and stopped the bleeding. The best we can do now is give him something for the pain."

"What about his head? He looked like he had a concussion."

The nurse looked grim. "It's a bad one, I'm afraid. There's no permanent damage to his brain and no internal bleeding…but his concussion is stage three. He had a seizure while we were treating him."

This inspired a slight panic in Gibbs and Tony's faces, but before they could react, she continued. "We've given him something to reduce the swelling and he's ok. We'd like to keep him here for the night…" looking at her watch, she noticed that it was almost morning. "Well, we'd like to keep him for at least 24 hours to make sure he doesn't have another seizure. You can see him as soon as they're done with his cast."

McGee was awake and far less dazed when the two agents entered his room. Now that the dust was settling on this experience Tim realized that he was going to be in big trouble for getting himself shot.

Tony knew that Gibbs would want a moment with his youngest, so he excused himself under the pretense of needing coffee. When they were alone, McGee was the first to speak.

"Boss, I'm sorry, I-"

Gibbs would have head smacked his agent if he weren't already concussed, so he chose the typical glare as his opener. But when Tim started to apologize, Jethro interrupted.

"Don't apologize, McGee."

"Right, sign of weakness. Sorry…I mean-"

"You're sure as hell not weak, Tim," Gibbs said. The younger agent blinked. That was the most meaningful thing his Boss had ever said to him. Gibbs didn't give his usual smirk but his eyes couldn't hide the pride he felt. "I'd have done the same thing."

Tim smiled, though it faltered when his boss continued. "But if you ever do anything that stupid again you'll be at your desk for the rest of your life."

_Anything_ but that. McGee nodded, taking the threat seriously, though he couldn't find it in himself to look too abashed given how happy he was over receiving such a compliment from Gibbs.

When DiNozzo returned, trading out seats with their Boss, his emotions were a bit more transparent.

"If you ever do something like that again I'll shoot you myself, McGee."

Tim snorted. "I'm not going to apologize for it, Tony."

The senior agent ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I thought you'd say something like that. And, uh, well, I'm pretty sure that if you didn't do it then we'd all be dead right now. So…thanks."

"No problem."

"No problem? I wouldn't call it that."

"Actually I don't know if it's that big a deal, I mean, someone had to do something. It was stupid, yeah, but it's not like we all haven't done stuff like that before."

It was a fair point, but DiNozzo shook his head. "I don't think Ziva's going to agree when she wakes up."

As if summoned by the sound of her name, Ziva rolled herself into the room in a wheelchair. Ducky and Jimmy followed behind, looking exhausted and a little shell-shocked.

"I thought you were asleep," Tony said.

"We told her she shouldn't be out of bed," Palmer spoke up sheepishly. "But she threatened to crawl here if we didn't get her a wheelchair."

"And we wanted to see you," Doctor Mallard said, taking McGee's chart from the front of his bed and skimming the report. "How are you feeling, Timothy?"

"Fine. A little tired."

"Well that's certainly to be expected. You need rest. But I felt I should thank you beforehand. As your physician I'd advise you avoid such recklessness in the future," he chuckled. "But as your coworker and friend I'll admit that you were quite heroic."

Palmer nodded. "Yeah, thanks, Tim. We...owe you one?"

McGee smiled again, trying to avoid Ziva's stormy expression.

"Now Mister Palmer, let's see if Jethro won't get us a ride home. Where is he? No, never mind, I'd wager anything he's getting coffee. Let's go." As they headed for the door, Ducky replaced the chart and warned, "Make sure he gets some sleep. His injuries are too severe for him to go without it."

"Which means no attacking him, Zee-va," Tony teased after the medical examiners were gone.

"Fine," the ex-Mossad agent agreed. "But McGee, if you ever do that again…"

"I won't," Tim said defensively. He put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, but it hurt his arm and he winced, putting them back down. "I've had enough death threats for one night, Z."

There was a pause, which settled over the room until he noticed the small pile of personal effects that his nurses had gathered when they took him to get an x-ray. "The thing they wanted was the flash drive. It should be in there."

Tony picked it up and looked at the little device. "I'll take it to Abby tomorrow."

"Did anyone tell her what happened?" Ziva wondered.

"Well, I'd say the backup team is getting to NCIS right now," Tony said, looking at his watch. "And if the alternate tech isn't there then they'll probably wait and tell her when she gets to work…which is only a couple hours away. Which means you only have a couple hours left to live, McGee."

"Oh god," the bedridden agent groaned. "She's going to panic when she finds out."

"Panic? She will be furious when she hears what you did," Ziva smiled. "And she won't agree not to attack you."

"Can we just not tell her?"

"If we try and keep it from her she'll kill us all," Tony grinned. "Then all that stupid bravery of yours would be for nothing."

"You are toast."

Tim sighed, gently easing his head back into the pillow. Leave it to Ziva to get that idiom right.

"Yeah, sorry McGee, but you're toast."

* * *

Although the whole ordeal had been nightmarish and surreal, (even more so because it was Tim at the middle of it,) everyone was safe in assuming that things would go back to normal. The team was good at bouncing back from near-death experiences, seeing as they happened so frequently, and there was nothing to suggest they wouldn't bounce back again.

And for a while, they did. The case, despite the excessive violence it supplied, was open and shut. The shooters killed the petty officer, hoping to sell the information on his flash drive- top secret Naval intelligence; nothing out of the ordinary for the Major Case Response team of course. The third suspect, the missing gunman, was found and arrested by Tony and Ziva after Abby worked her ballistics magic. The man tried to resist arrest…as if Ziva needed another reason to knock him to the ground, which she happily did, even with her still-healing leg.

McGee was required to take a short leave of absence at Ducky's injunction, and then was relegated to desk duty until his ankle was fully healed six weeks later. Even though he hated staying behind while everyone else was in the field, Tim took it in his usual stride. It gave him a lot of free time, however, which was the _last_ thing he wanted. There was once a time when he enjoyed his quiet thoughtful moments. Nowadays, too much time alone with his thoughts was more exhausting than trying to get around with the annoying, heavy cast on his foot.

When he was by himself in the bullpen or his apartment, Tim didn't have a reason or the strength to keep up the act and his mask would slip. He'd lie awake despite being so tired he ached to rest. The numbness would come close to suffocating him.

It had occurred gradually, this misery. Well, it wasn't so much a sense of misery but a draining self-doubt so intense it eclipsed all other emotion, absorbed every fiber of his being. These weren't feelings of inadequacy in his own physical self- that type of insecurity was just a natural, albeit juvenile emotion that he'd overcome easily by getting fit and becoming a seasoned agent. No, a playful jibe from DiNozzo or a belligerent suspect were not hardly enough to affect him like it used to; to make him tailspin like this. It took much more...but he didn't like to dwell on the reasons, even though he knew what they were, because it was painful. But their effects had burned him from the inside, consuming like any other fire, so that there was nothing left of his sense of self. This of course had left plenty of room for the unconscious attempts at compensation to wash in under the deceptive guise of relief: the need to be productive. Not just to take his mind off things, though that was a reason...Tim was the contemplative sort, and usually when he encountered an emotional problem the solution was taking some alone time to work through it, to think it over until he'd made sense of whatever he was facing. But he'd tried that, and it didn't work this time, so he instead turned to avoiding _all_ alone time with his thoughts, unless they were case-related. Yes, that seemed to help. However, the other reason he wanted to be productive was because it meant he was doing something important. He was needed, he was contributing. It felt good to be doing something meaningful and important...he didn't stop to think that he wanted to do so for the wrong reasons. Because even though it felt like relief for the burning in his chest, it was more like a numbing agent. Or even worse, it was doing damage in its own right. It was like trying to fix dehydration with bleach.

He'd felt this way for weeks…it had crept into his psyche and taken up residence there. It made him sloppy at work. Not in day to day activities, mind you, but in the field. In combat situations. As NCIS agents they really didn't encounter life-or-death situations every single day, so this problem hadn't presented itself until now. And it wasn't that he wanted to get hurt, but it no longer occurred to him to worry about it. What was the point? Working, contributing something to NCIS was what he lived for nowadays. So he threw himself into it. Even if he was stuck to his desk he did all he could to help. On the outside he was the same, but inwardly he was as desperate to do the job as he'd been when he was a probie. He was fine when he was at work. Maybe he wasn't ok when he left the NCIS building every evening and reentered the real world, but that didn't matter in the slightest considering how little time he actually spent in the "real world." He was ok when he was at NCIS. Focusing on cases and on his team and on just working.

And just working, well..it was enough for now.


	4. Chapter 4

Six weeks went by full of overtime, stress, and grisly cases. But seeing as he'd been stuck at his desk for all that time, McGee was going stir crazy. Hacking, research, and general desk duties stopped satisfying him after week three. No matter how well he did, no matter how many times Gibbs vocalized his rare "Good work," or another suspect was caught, it was nothing compared to how much he wanted to be back in the field. This overeager need to get out of the bullpen didn't go unnoticed, but the rest of the team understood. None of them liked working the desk when they could be out saving lives, even while recovering from a near death experience that had supplied a broken ankle, gunshot wound and stage three concussion. And no one noticed how pale or worn McGee looked, because they all looked that way; it had been a rough few weeks full of upsetting murders, with victims ranging from children to veterans. They were all due for a break.

But from the moment Tim was cleared for active field duty, things began to escalate.

It started with little moments; returning gunfire at suspects with more zeal, sticking his head out from behind cover to fire off a few rounds before even Ziva would dare to, not minding heights or bloodbaths like he once did…all these things generally went unnoticed, even by McGee. He was just numbed to it, that's all. The thought of what might happen to him if he were to slip up didn't worry him in the slightest. And again, no one really noticed because, in the heat of the moment, all any of them were really concerned with was stopping a bad guy before someone got hurt.

Someone was hurt however, and as a matter of fact, it was McGee.

This stayed a secret to everyone, including, Tim, until after a case- which had been a particularly long one. Four men murdered within two weeks and one disappearance, all on the same naval base. This was especially troubling, as it was a base with a residential community, meaning there were families very close to this maniac (for it had been determined through forensics and some sharp autopsy work that the murders were all by the same individual). Families with children. And while the killer had yet to attack any kids, Team Gibbs was not willing to allow for even the most remote possibility.

It was because of this that the tension in the bullpen was palpable- it wasn't that they were upset with each other, they were simply all upset with themselves, wondering why it was taking them so long to find a perp so arrogant that he or she had stayed in the same five mile radius even after NCIS had taken the case.

"It's gotta be someone who lives there," Tim said, examining a map where all of the bodies had been found.

"We already know that, McGee!" Tony responded in exasperation as he entered the bullpen, just catching the end of the younger man's statement.

"Actually Tony, we were just discussing a theory I have," Ziva defended, not putting up with DiNozzo's snippy mood. "I wondered if perhaps the killer was taking the victims while they are out, and dumping the bodies at various places around the base."

"But then he would have to get in and out of the base, past security, with his victims in a car or truck or something. There are dogs at some of the entrances who would smell them. And everyone has been on high alert since the first body was found and this guy is still managing to kill people!" McGee argued, frustrated. They were wasting time…and while he hadn't technically been keeping a running score of how much he contributed to the case each day, he had developed a habit of beating himself up whenever he thought he didn't do "enough."

DiNozzo glanced over at Tim's computer. "How's that program working?"

When Ducky concluded that they were looking for a highly disturbed individual, McGee set to work coding a program that would hack through the base's computer systems and retrieve all psychiatric records for persons matching the scarce forensic information Abby had collected from the crime scene evidence. Unfortunately, the ME and goth had only been able to guarantee that the suspect was a male aged 18-55. It wasn't a lot to go on whatsoever. The program had been running nonstop since Tim finished it, but it wasn't as much help as it could have been, because not everyone on the base had any sort of record of psychiatric issues, even if they suffered from them. And these records only included people who sought out help, or who had to pass some sort of mental competence test, meaning most spouses and children of officers stationed in the community would go undetected by McGee's otherwise brilliant software.

"Nothing yet," the junior agent said, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice. Tony frowned at how tired McGee looked at that moment, but said nothing.

Ziva suppressed a sigh. "We have interviewed dozens of suspects and we have combed every inch of the area. Ducky and Palmer have examined each victim from top to bottom."

"Ok, let's look at that," DiNozzo suggested, attempting to ignore how hungry he was. They'd all (hardly) slept in the bullpen the previous night and had subsequently skipped breakfast. He pressed a button on the flatscreen's remote, and the pictures of the victims popped onto the screen.

The gruesome sight made it easier to forget about eating.

"So all four victims died of unknown causes," DiNozzo restated the facts. "Then they were all carved up with a knife postmortem." Multiple, deliberate patterns of cuts traced their way across each torso.

Tim stepped forward to examine the photos closer, then turned and grabbed his desk phone, pressing his speed dial for Ducky's desk in the autopsy lab.

"Hello?"

"Ducky, I have another question about the victims for our serial killer. What kind of knife would be used to make those cuts?"

Tony and Ziva gathered around McGee's desk, so he put Ducky on speaker.

"Well…" the older man thought for a moment. "Really, the patterns on each victim were done postmortem, almost certainly through the work of a scalpel."

"Damn, that's no help, anyone can get a scalpel," DiNozzo said.

Ducky, having heard his remark, continued. "I wouldn't be so sure, Tony. Most people, even highly disciplined killers, are clumsy with such a knife the first time. Yet every single victim looks like they were attended to by a trained professional. But…" the older man went silent, as this eye was caught by the line of X-rays Jimmy had taken of the bodies.

"Are you there, Ducky?"

"I think you'd better come see something," the doctor said, thoughtful.

As they hung up, Gibbs entered the bullpen. "What've got?" he asked.

"Ducky wants us down in autopsy," Tony said as the team made their way to the elevator.

In the basement, the Scotsman and Palmer were staring at the row of X-rays.

"Ah, Jethro…" the older ME regarded the agents with a hint of amusement. "I didn't expect everyone to come down at once."

"Not a problem if it's worth it," Gibbs hinted.

"Yes, right. Do you see this?" he pointed to a spot on the first picture, right at the edge of where the heart was.

"I don't see anything," McGee admitted.

"Neither do I," Ziva said.

Ducky patiently went down the row of X-rays and pointed to the same spot on each one. "Every single one of these victims suffered a heart attack."

"How? They were all perfectly healthy," DiNozzo said.

"Exactly. They were perfectly healthy, yet each person's heart has been tampered with. I would guess that the victims were given a shock with a defibrillator while still alive, as a method of torture. Then after they were dead, the killer took his frustration out on them with a scalpel."

"What makes you think the killer used a defibrillator?" Gibbs asked.

"By process of elimination. Abigail found nothing in the blood tests to suggest poison, and something causing such identical heart attacks in four very healthy men that did not leave any marks on the skin...I told you this work with the scalpel was most likely done by someone with a medical background. And to cause such heart attacks would require repeated but controlled doses of electricity. The person who stopped these four hearts is someone experienced in restarting them."

Suddenly Tim lit up, happy to finally contribute something he deemed worthwhile. "Tony, you and I questioned that doctor a few days ago, remember? He said his wife was overseas and that he worked at Bethesda as a... cardiothoracic surgeon, I think."

Gibbs jumped into action. "McGee find out all you can about this guy. DiNozzo, look up what you can about the wife. Ziva, call the base, make sure no body goes in or out until we get there." As the agents all rushed from the room, Gibbs turned to call "thanks, Duck," before the autopsy doors swished closed behind him.

...

"Ok, so the guy's name is Robert Asbury, 42, lives on the base with his wife who is currently on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific," McGee said, so eager that he sounded like this new information was an early birthday present.

The bullpen was filled with a fresh energy now that the team had something to go on.

"But it turns out his wife filed for divorce six months ago," Ziva spoke up. "Only three months after they were married."

"On what grounds?" Tony asked.

"It just says irreconcilable differences."

"Guys," McGee added. "It says that Asbury was stripped of his medical license around the same time that they filed for divorce."

"Get the wife on in MTAC, see what she has to say," Gibbs said. McGee followed him up to the secure surveillance room and began contacting the officers of the ship.

Only thirty minutes later, the team was rushing to Asbury's residence. A long and very informative talk with Petty Officer Asbury revealed that the two filed for divorce after she cheated on her husband.

"I am sorry for hurting him, but I don't think he is really capable of being hurt," she said. "As soon as we were married he became a totally different person. He's like a sociopath, Agent Gibbs. He turns on the charm until he doesn't need to anymore. I cheated, yes, but not on the man I married…only on some empty shell. I'm not making excuses for what I did, but he was and is a terrible husband."

"Is there a chance he'd become violent?"

"I don't…I mean, he was furious when he found out I'd slept with someone else, and said he was going to kill the guy. I just chalked that up to his anger at me. I never told him who the guy was, so I figured he was safe."

"I have a report here that says your husband's medical license was revoked after a malpractice incident," McGee spoke up.

"Yeah, it was right after we separated. I think that's why he's dragging the whole process out so long. As long as we're married, he can live on the base as my spouse. Once we're divorced, he's got no job and no roof over his head."

The conversation went on for a few more minutes, and when the call disconnected, everything fell into place.

"Asbury's been drawing out the divorce so that he can live on the base," McGee told Tony and Ziva once they all met back in the bullpen. "Odds are, he wants to stay there until he's satisfied with his body count. His wife never told him who she slept with. She wouldn't told us, either. So Asbury must have narrowed it down to a few men and is now picking them off one by one."

"This sounds like too much raw emotion for a true psychopath," Ducky chimed in, entering the bullpen and joining the conversation. "This is not sexual gratification, but jealousy, catharsis. Revenge. Obviously he is suffering from a major psychotic disorder, but he is far more emotional than your average serial killer. Which might make him even more dangerous."

"But more predictable. You got the address?" Gibbs asked.

"Here," Ziva said, already having written it down on a sticky note.

"Oh, Jethro," the agent's old friend added. "I came up here to tell you that once Ziva told me your suspect worked at Bethesda, I pulled some strings with an old friend who works there and found that Asbury's malpractice scandal had to do with performing unnecessary exploratory surgery on one of his cardiology patients, lying about the results of a diagnosis test in order to convince the woman that she needed the surgery."

"This guy should be in jail already," Tony said as the agents grabbed their guns and badges.

"Well now we get to put him there," Tim said, a little too optimistic about the whole thing.

"McGee, you're staying here," Gibbs said.

"Boss?" the younger agent protested, with a little too much volume. When Gibbs gave him a look, he became sheepish. "Sorry, but I was cleared for field work two weeks ago. I've been fine the whole time-"

"Actually, Timothy, it was my suggestion," Ducky spoke up. "You look very unwell. I don't think you're fit to be chasing after a highly dangerous criminal."

Heat rose to Tim's cheeks. "Ducky, I'm fine," he said gently but with a pleading tone. "We all just look a little worse for wear because we haven't been home in more than 24 hours. I promise I'll be alright. And if this guy really is dangerous, then all of us should go. Please."

Gibbs gave Ducky a look, and finally the doctor acquiesced. "Alright...but don't overdo it."

...

To McGee's chagrin, he had won the battle but lost the war- Gibbs forced him to wait outside the house; he was only allowed to come in if he heard gunshots. But surprisingly, there were none. The psychotic doctor, satisfied that he'd killed all the men on his list of possible adulterers, gave in without a fight. The truly upsetting thing was that the fifth disappearance was resolved soon after; they had missed their chance of saving him by several hours. The arrest became a crime scene, and Ducky and Jimmy were called out to retrieve the final body.

Tim was more than upset, he was pissed off. At himself, mind you. After all of those days of working at his desk, trying to catch this bastard, and he'd been forced to wait by the car. Like a child. They didn't need his help in bringing down this guy whatsoever, it seemed. Guilt plagued him. He'd done nothing of real consequence to close this case. Of course he was wrong, the team never would have done it without him, but in McGee's mind, he had a huge deficit to make up. If he hadn't been faster, if he hadn't worried about that stupid computer program, then maybe the fifth victim wouldn't have been killed.

He kept his concerns quiet, of course, as they wrapped up the crime scene investigation of the house. Loads of medical tools were found hidden throughout the establishment and it felt like ages before they were finished with the place.

Still, the man was in custody, and that meant an end to the case. Sure, there would still be reports and paperwork to do, but as far as the agents were concerned, the whole thing would be wrapped up before nightfall. Gibbs was in a relatively good mood despite the fact that Palmer and Ducky had one last victim to examine; since it was a Friday, he saw no harm in letting his agents take the weekend off. They more than deserved it-all three were sporting circles under their eyes. Even Abby seemed a bit worn out (if ever such a thing were possible). But he didn't want to get their hopes up until he was sure they could spare the time off, so Gibbs decided to wait until later to tell them to go home.

Once everything was loaded into the van and Tony and Ziva had secured the handcuffed man in the back of the car, the crime scene caravan took off towards NCIS.

Ziva watched their captured serial killer with narrow eyes as DiNozzo filled the tense silence with meaningless chit chat. This was a man not to be trifled with, as he'd demonstrated with McGee only minutes before. He stared back, a twisted glint in his eye. Some of Tim's blood was dried over his fingers but he didn't seem to notice or care.

"Why heart attacks?" DiNozzo finally asked, glancing at the man in the back seat.

Asbury seemed completely uninterested and unaffected by Tony's questions. "You mean, why not just shoot them like a regular jealous husband?" When Tony didn't answer, he continued. "I'm a doctor specializing in cardiopulmonary sciences. I how fragile the heart is. It's an easy thing to break. Quite literally. And when your heart gives out, you can feel yourself dying. There's no better torture than that."


	5. Chapter 5

The agents were granted the weekend off, and while Tony, Ziva and Gibbs all returned well-rested and ready to work on Monday, they were all secretly frightened to see that Tim somehow looked even worse. Jethro sent McGee to get looked at by Ducky, but the young man was able to convince the doctor that he was only having trouble sleeping. It wasn't a lie, in fact it was glaringly true. He just didn't saw why he was having so much trouble. The elderly doctor was going to send him home, but both the ME and agent were again needed at a crime scene.

This time, however, it was truly an open and shut case. It wasn't a crime scene at all, really, but the matter of a marine found on a hiking trail had slipped and fallen, hit his head and died soon after. Ziva found his sports camera nearby, which had, for better or worse, captured the whole thing.

The true shock of the day came after the vans were on the road for only a few minutes. Tony and Gibbs, sitting in the front seat of the CSI vehicle, saw the whole thing first.

A small set of buildings backed up to the road, each a remolded house turned into a modest but pleasant apartment complex. The building closest to the road was surrounded by a small crowd of frantic people, and when Gibbs saw the smoke coming from the windows on the third floor he understood why.

Firefighters hadn't arrived on the scene yet when Jethro yanked the car over to the curb and slammed on the breaks. The building was clearly on fire, so when the hoard of onlookers rushed the NCIS vehicle, mistaking it for an ambulance, the agents had to gently fight them back before they could ask for medical assistance. Ducky and Palmer had pulled up in the ME van. The two members of Team Gibbs most experienced in medical emergencies were, of course, Doctor Mallard and his young assistant, who immediately began looking over the minor burns some tenants had suffered while trying to escape the fire.

"Anyone call 9-1-1?" Gibbs asked the crowd.

"I did," a young woman stepped forward. "They should be here any minute."

Unfortunately, whatever had started the blaze was fast acting and soon flames could be seen from the top floor.

"Is everyone out?" Tony asked, hoping to god the answer was yes. If not, those people had very little time left.

"I don't know," the woman said. But as she replied, screams could be heard from inside the building.

DiNozzo and Ziva whipped their heads in the direction of the screaming, and were both horrified and completely unsurprised to see Gibbs already running towards the door of the building. The real shock was the fact that the team leader was a few paces behind McGee, who shoved the door to the small complex open with his shoulder without stopping, not bothering to test the handle for heat.

"Boss!"

"McGee!"

Their shouts were lost to the two men, who were already inside. DiNozzo debated running in after them, but Ducky saw the expression on his face and stopped him before he or Ziva could follow their colleagues into the fire.

"Don't you dare, Anthony. You two would do more harm than good trying to retrieve Timothy and Jethro. And with your lungs you shouldn't go anywhere near there."

Tony nodded, realizing the older man was right (with his plague-scarred lungs, he would be next to useless in the smoke) but he could not help the panic that rose to his throat. He didn't have a mirror, but he was fairly certain that his expression was identical to Ducky's look of worry. No, he was sure that Ducky's expression was far more controlled- Tony was filled with dread and it took all he had not to lose it right then and there. Ducky would understand his worry for his friends, but probably not the unbridled panic he felt.

Secretly, the elderly ME was a bit upset with his old friend; he knew Gibbs was reckless and would put his life aside for just about anyone, but Jethro should have known that his team, who would follow him to hell and back, would chase after him into the burning building.

But Ducky's agitation was misplaced, for while he assumed that Tim's youth was the only reason the young man had beaten his boss to the door, it was actually McGee who'd sprinted forward without a second thought. Gibbs might have done the same, but the older man was really only spurred forward at the sight of his youngest rushing towards the flames. It was an automatic response to protect his team, and while he wanted nothing more than to drag McGee back to the van and knock him upside the head for his borderline-psychotic bravery. But Tim was not a child, and Gibbs knew that there really was no choice. There was no sign of a firetruck yet, and the building (and the people inside it) would likely not last long enough to see their arrival.

Hence the stupid, reckless, insane actions by Gibbs and McGee. And when Gibbs ran after Tim into the building, blinking against the smoke that assailed his senses, he didn't know whether to kill his agent for his idiocy, or give him a medal for his bravery.

….

McGee hadn't realized that his boss followed him until he paused in the entrance room, listening for the screams and looking around for the source of the smoke. The fire had yet to spread down to the first floor, which seemed, relatively, like a blessing. When Gibbs put his hand on his agent's shoulder, McGee jumped, but Jethro only pointed up the stairs and took the lead.

Once they reached the second floor, the shouts could be hear much more clearly. The fire had begun to eat away at the hallway, and the agents had to jump over several patches of burning carpet. They found the apartment that emitted the sounds of crying, and, as if they were pursuing a suspect, the junior agent took his spot near the door while Gibbs reared up and kicked it down.

The sight they found was a sad one; a young mother with four small children was struggling to get them in order so that she might carry them to safety. Most likely she did not realize the building was on fire until the smoke alarms went of, at which time her four children of varying ages became hysterical. Not wanting to leave any of them behind, and unable to pick them all up at once, she had cried out for help. It was a good thing Tim and Jethro had reacted when they did- the little family would not have been able to navigate the fiery hallway by themselves, as none of the children were really old enough to understand what to do in the event of a fire.

Without stopping to think, McGee rushed forward, lifted two of the kids, as Gibbs pulled the sobbing woman to her feet and picked up the other two. The two agents ran back down the hallway, leading the woman down the stairs and out the door.

The firetruck and ambulance finally arrived just as the two agents emerged. Immediately, the professional emergency workers took over, pulling out the huge fire hose and clearing the way of the nearest fire hydrant. An ambulance pulled up right behind the NCIS CSI van, and despite the cuts and burns that a few of the residents had suffered, it was clear the young woman and her children needed to be examined first. McGee gently handed the two kids, who had clung to him desperately as soon as he'd picked them up, off to the EMTs. Gibbs handed the two in his arms to their sobbing mother, who gripped them close and thanked the two agents over and over. Both Gibbs and Tim refused help from the EMTs, insisting they were fine, but Ducky was having none of it, and was not satisfied until he'd glanced over both men.

"When we get back to NCIS, I want you both to come down to the morgue. I'm assessing you both for smoke inhalation."

Gibbs said nothing, and Tim doubled over, too out of breath to argue. Despite the burning in his lungs from breathing in ash, dust and polluted air, there was a pleasant feeling of accomplishment in his chest. Those kids didn't die. He'd done something right.

When he straightened up, DiNozzo fixed him with an expression that could only be described as begrudging pride.

"That was really stupid, McGee," he said. "But…"

"I know, if I ever do it again, you'll kill me yourself," Tim quipped, a grin working its way onto his face. Despite his annoyance at his friend's recklessness, DiNozzo shared the smile.

"Right."

Still, Tony hadn't missed the look on Tim's face when they'd exited the fire- it was the same expression he wore when he'd been found in the woods. It had originally seemed like a wild-eyed panicky look, but now that he'd seen it again, DiNozzo couldn't miss the determination that rested, hidden under the adrenaline and fear. It made his gut twist in worry, because it was a look that he'd seen before; on Ziva, on himself, Gibbs, Mike Franks, and even Director Shepard. Never McGee. Not until now. It was Tony's least favorite expression to see on people he cared about, because it was a look that said not only is that person prepared to fight, they're prepared to _go down fighting_.

…

Since the fire was not their case, there was nothing more they could do once the firefighters sprung into action. After the agents made sure that no one was seriously hurt, they packed up to go home. The woman that the agents had saved thanked them profusely, and then the little family was whisked away to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. As soon as they returned to NCIS, Ducky made good on his demands and held both Jethro and McGee in the autopsy room until he was satisfied that their lungs would be alright. None of their cuts, bruises, or burns were serious, so Ducky and Palmer made short work of their charges. While sitting across from each other on the exam tables, Tim looked at Gibbs, expecting to get in trouble, but saving the lives of children was far from a punishable offense and Gibbs just nodded in approval. It wasn't until they were in the elevator heading up to the squadroom that Jethro said, "You did good, McGee."

"Thanks, Boss. You too."

Gibbs smiled slightly and turned back to watching the numbers count off the floors as they ascended. "Don't make it three times, Tim," he warned, without anger. His agent knew that he meant "no risking your life a third time," and he responded with a seemingly sincere "yes, Boss," before the elevator dinged and they joined the other half of their team in the bullpen. Tony and Ziva fluttered around Tim's desk, asking questions and praising him (and Gibbs) for their actions. However, the team leader noticed how worn and pale his youngest agent was looking and got up, giving the others a look that send them back to their desks.

"You alright, McGee?"

"Yeah, sorry Boss, I'm fine. Just tired, I guess."

"Finish up your case report and go home. You too," he said to DiNozzo and Ziva. "See you all tomorrow."

The agents brightened at this. After having the weekend off, this reward of going home early was almost too good to be true. Though Tony and Ziva looked at their friend and realized just how badly he could use a real vacation. McGee just couldn't help but be grateful for the time off. He was beat, and while he'd usually insist that he would be fine staying until the end of day, the weekend hadn't been relaxing at all, and he needed sleep. Plus, it wasn't missing work if everyone got the time off, right?

He finished up the case report in record time, and decided to read and answer the day's work emails before going home. One in particular caught his eye, and he sat there staring at the screen, lost in thought for so long that Ziva noticed and had to call him twice to get his attention.

"Sorry, Ziva, what did you say?"

"I asked if you were alright," she said.

"Oh yeah, just reading something," he said, then his fingers moved in a flurry of clicks. He typed so fast that Tony was startled from his case report, but the older agent didn't say anything, assuming his friend was just trying to get his own report done faster.

In fact, Tony was only halfway through the work when McGee started gathering his belongings. Ziva had stepped away to use the restroom, and Gibbs was off making sure their killer was put in the proper custody, so the two were alone in the bullpen.

"Did you wanna get a drink?" Tony offered.

"I'm actually kind of hungry," Tim said. That was probably for the best- he looked a little too tired and pale to be adding alcohol to the equation. "I was gonna go home and order a pizza. You can come over…I'll even let you pick the movie."

DiNozzo perked up a bit at the idea. They did this from time to time after a rough case and right then pizza sounded like the best thing in the world.

"You don't have to wait up," Tony said.

"I'll go home and order the food. Just come over when you're done," Tim said, smiling and heading off to the elevators.

...

Despite the prospect of food, it took Tony forever to finish the work. Ziva and Gibbs both left before he did, so he was all alone in the bullpen by the time he hit print and waited for the ancient piece of tech to spit out his report.

While he waited he decided to check his work email; there was nothing much new, except for a mass-message from the office of the Sec-Nav, titled "**Agents Needed for Inter-Agency Task Force.**" To an NCIS agent, it might as well have been titled "**Fwd Fwd Fwd Fwd: You will be cursed if you do not read this!**" Just another bit of spam.

These emails were the worst. When truly classified cases ended up on the desk of the director, he hand picked the men and women he felt were fit for the job. The rest of the time, when agents were needed for task forces or to run surveillance in remote locations, these mass emails were sent to everyone's work accounts, fishing for volunteers. Sometimes it was a job as mundane as "agent afloat," but sometimes these missions were truly life-threatening operations in countries from which any sane person would steer clear.

Tony hated these things. At best they were annoying, and at worst they reminded him of the handful of undercover operations he'd done for the past few directors of NCIS. When he was a cop, small time undercover jobs were his "thing." Back then they were short-lived and not relatively dangerous…the ones he'd done as an agent were very dangerous, and never his idea. They always ended up hurting him physically, mentally, and emotionally. The only time he'd ever willingly put together such an operation was the infamous suicide mission to Somalia, and he never really expected to come back from that. During that dark summer he was consumed with thoughts of Ziva's death and her death alone.

But nowadays, yeah, he saw right through these emails. Because he knew that the non-dangerous ones were not actually all that secret or all that important; they were just Probie-bait designed to give Vance a sense of who among the probationary agents had talent or ambition or guts. These occurred once every other month and went straight to the trash bins on every seasoned agents' computer.

It was the vague, classified messages that were sent only to the dozen or so agents who worked on the same floor as the MCRT…those were the scary ones. The purpose of these emails was to provide a selection of candidates for high-level operations. These were operations overseas, created by the Brass well over Vance's head. They were short, top secret and often ended in injury or worse. It was odd to send out something as informal and mundane as a semi-mass email to find volunteers for these lethal missions, but they were created and sent out by the Sec-Nav and his office. Vance had no say in the matter other than selecting the best agent from the pool of volunteers. If it were a strictly NCIS-related case, the director had no problem picking and assigning a top agents to a task himself. But in situations like these, the director always hoped that no one would bother to even read the whole message. And most didn't. Only when an agent wanted to move up in the ranks or was in need of a bonus check did they consider taking the assignment.

Tony, quite satisfied with his salary and with his spot on the team, deleted the email without a second thought. He finished his case report and put it on Gibbs' desk before gathering his belongings. Hopefully McGee would have the pizza and beer ready by the time he got to his friend's apartment. DiNozzo was just shutting down his computer when Jimmy entered carrying a small stack of files.

"Hey, Tony."

"What are you still doing here, Palmer? I thought you and Ducky would have gone home by now."

"I'm on my way out. Doctor Mallard just wanted me to run these up to the director before I left."

"I'll take them, Palmer," Vance was descending the stairs from his office and heard the exchange. "Tell Dr. Mallard I said thank you."

"No problem. Good night, Director. 'Night, Tony."

The junior medical examiner left the bullpen, and DiNozzo put his case report on Gibbs' desk. When he turned to leave, he saw that Leon had stayed in one place and was looking through the top file on the stack.

"Well…goodnight," the senior agent said awkwardly, scooting past the older man and heading for the elevators.

"Wait, DiNozzo. I have a question for you."

Suppressing a sigh, (was he never going to get to eat dinner?) Tony turned back towards his boss and waited.

"Has Agent McGee said anything to you about wanting to transfer? Or to do something other than what he's doing with your team?"

The questions caught him completely off guard. Tim wanting a transfer? Where did that come from? "What? I mean…sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."

Vance studied his face for a moment to see if he was telling the truth. Apparently satisfied, he nodded and cast his eyes back down to the files in his hands. "That's what I thought," he said. Tony noticed that the first folder was Tim's medical record.

"Is there something wrong with McGee?"

Vance wasn't allowed to say the words, "Agent McGee volunteered for an overseas mission," but now that Tony had seen the file, he informed, "Palmer was bringing me the records of all the agents that volunteered for the op in that email."

A stunned silence punched through the bullpen. DiNozzo was far from stupid, but it took him longer than it should have to put two and two together. When he did, the questions started running through his brain. Why was the junior agent volunteering for some inter-agency task force in some ungodly war-torn area? Did Gibbs know? The announcement had just gone out a couple hours ago, which meant that McGee hadn't given it more than a couple hours' thought…..What the hell was going on?

"I'm not going to keep Agent McGee from going if he wants to," Vance noted. "He's the most qualified for the job, to be honest. But I don't want to let him go if it's just because of something else going on."

They weren't really supposed to be discussing another agent's business like this. The director was being oddly frank and open with Tony, which the agent would have found unusual if he didn't understand what Vance was trying to say. Assuming they survived their mission, most agents decided to transfer or to stay with the taskforce they'd worked with. Leon didn't want to lose McGee to another agency or even another office, as NCIS was rather lacking in employees so capable in computer sciences. Not to mention the fact that it was hard to find anyone willing to fill a spot on Team Gibbs for any expanse of time. (Leroy Jethro Gibbs was infamous for his tough demeanor, though Ziva and Tony alone were enough to scare most probies away.) And Tim was a damn good agent, plain and simple. Sure there were a lot of good agents out there, but how many had trained from scratch under the tutelage of the best team NCIS had to offer?

"I'll find out what he's- what he wants," Tony said absently, too caught up in his thoughts to pay much attention to what Vance was saying. "Good night, Director."

With that, DiNozzo turned and went back to the elevators. Vance watched him go, wondering if Team Gibbs was about to fall apart.


	6. Chapter 6

**Ok, so there are some spoilers for the episode SQUALL in this story, and with the whole storyline involving McGee's father. I am, however, taking that story line and tweaking it a bit. We're going to assume that no one on the team knows that Admiral McGee is sick, not even Gibbs. With that in mind, read on and let me know what you think. TRIGGER WARNINGS. Depression, mentions of suicide. You've been warned. **

...

Tony drove but hardly paid attention to the road in front of him. For the senior agent's part, he was slightly angry that Tim would want to run off on the team without warning. He'd always been happy working on the MCRT, right? Or did this have less to do with his job position and more to do with something else?

Several individual events from the past couple of months suddenly clicked into linear place. The whole stunt Tim had pulled in the woods, the fire, the constant look of exhaustion McGee was sporting these days, and now this idea to go running off on a secret operation…they were all connected, though DiNozzo wasn't sure why or how. The events of the day's excitement replayed in his thoughts. They'd all done their part to help, of course, but the way Tim had run back into the fire for those kids was above and beyond the call of duty. Not that such a thing was out of character for the team, especially since they all had emotional weak spots in the form of young children, but something was off. Maybe Tony was misremembering things, but it seemed to him that McGee had already turned and was running for the building before that woman screamed for help.

DiNozzo still wasn't sure why, but this was a pattern. The only things each occurrence had in common were the danger and the element of heroism. And Tim wasn't a glory hound. Plus, the pure physical burnout that McGee was clearly working to hide was not a symptom of some sort of savior-complex. So that meant that something else had happened to his partner to make the younger man go looking for near-death experiences.

The drive to McGee's apartment was a short one, so in his conflicted state Tony didn't get the chance to plan how he was going to approach the situation. He was not so much angry now as worried and, though he'd never admit or even acknowledge it, hurt. Tim was his brother and best friend and right now the only conclusions the senior agent could come up with were that either Tim wanted to move on to bigger and better things, or he was self destructive to the highest degree. Between the two unfortunate options, Tony hoped it was the first.

...

He tried to school his expression into something akin to casual, not willing to let McGee figure out what was wrong just yet. Still, it was difficult to keep his thoughts in check when Tim swung the door open to his apartment and said, "Please tell me you didn't pick a James Bond movie. No offense but we watch those every time."

He knew his friend was just joking, but he couldn't bring himself to come up with a retort. His cheeky smile was more of a grimace, the normally playful look in his eye was close to a glare as he studied his friend quietly. The junior agent noticed something was wrong. "What's wrong? I was just kidding about the Bond movies."

"No, I know, I was just thinking about today. The fire."

"Yeah, I was thinking about it too. At least no one got hurt," Tim said, opening the waiting box of pizza and helping himself to a slice before turning the box towards his friend.

"You and Gibbs could have gotten hurt," DiNozzo said as he took a piece, watching Tim's expression for any ticks. McGee sighed, thinking this was a repeat of that night in the hospital when his team had expressed dissent for his actions in the woods.

"Look Tony, I'm not sorry for doing it," McGee paraphrased his previous statement. "Those kids are alive and that's what matters."

"You know I'm not talking about that. But I noticed something. You ran towards the fire before that woman screamed, Tim."

McGee never flinched from his position, but in his mind he could suddenly feel himself getting backed into a corner and he wasn't sure why. "I knew there had to be more people in there."

"The firefighters were pulling up as you ran. They could have gotten everyone out in plenty of time."

"I couldn't just stand there and do nothing. I had a chance to be useful. I took it."

"Is that why you volunteered for that mission overseas? To be useful?" he snapped, accidentally playing his hand. Damn, if he was this rusty at subtle extraction of information, he probably needed the practice of an undercover mission himself.

Whatever argument McGee would have used to retort died on his lips and he put down his half-eaten pizza. "How did you know about that?"

"Vance got the files from Palmer while I was leaving. He asked if you were planning on transferring or something," DiNozzo said, a tone of hurt sneaking into his voice. "Is that what it's about? Do you not want to work here anymore?"

"No! I love working on the team, Tony. They needed someone with skills that I have. I'm not bragging when I say most NCIS agents don't have those kinds of computer skills. So yeah, actually, I took the job to be useful."

"You do realize a lot of people die on those missions, right?"

"It's always a possibility. But I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Like you were fine when you ran into the woods to lead those gunmen away from us. Or when you ran into a burning building to save some kids. Or every case when you run yourself into the ground for no reason? You're not fine, Tim. You look like hell, now that you bring it up."

"So my sleeping's been off the past couple weeks. I've dealt with worse," McGee said, choosing not to address the first half of that accusation.

"No, it's not that. I don't know why, but something's up with you. You're gonna burn out if you keep it up. Or worse."

He didn't respond, so Tony tried to appeal to the more sensitive side of his friend.

"Think about your family. Or what about Delilah? They wouldn't want you to do this to yourself."

This seemed to strike a nerve. Tim let out a sound that was supposed to be a skeptical laugh, but it was so devoid of humor and full of pain that it came out as more of a gasp.

"Delilah doesn't care, Tony. We broke up weeks ago."

The older man's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Jeez, why didn't you mention it?"

"What was I supposed to do, go into work and say, 'Good morning everyone. Guess what? I broke up with my girlfriend last night.' People break up all the time, I can deal with it on my own." His calm tone had melted away and Tim's voice filled with pain.

_But you're not,_ Tony thought, although he refrained from saying such a thing out loud. Still, the thoughts hung in the air between them; McGee couldn't hear them but he'd known DiNozzo long enough to understand the silence.

"It's not because of Delilah, Tony. It's not what you think."

This was the closest he'd gotten McGee to admitting that something was wrong. Encouraged, the senior agent pushed against his friend's defenses a little more. "So what is it, then?"

Tim's brows knitted as he struggled with his next move. He didn't want to do this. This wasn't Tony's problem. It wasn't a problem at all, in his mind.

DiNozzo waited, seeing that McGee was thinking about what to say next. Unfortunately, an explanation did not follow, but instead a vehement, "It's nothing."

Any denial was, at this point, basically a lie, and the anger Tony had felt before began to resurface. The two men were so different in so many ways, but it showed most in times of conflict and stress- the more unhappy McGee became, the quieter he was. The more unhappy DiNozzo felt, the more he talked. Without a filter.

"Really? It's nothing?" he said, his voice a decibel or two higher than he meant it to be. "Because it sounds more like you have a death wish to me."

Cruel, yes, but it seemed to hit another sensitive point. McGee visibly flinched. In the dim lighting of his apartment, he had never looked so unhealthy. But though hurt by the accusation, Tim did not return his friend's anger.

"I'm not suicidal, Tony," he said softly.

The senior agent was too angry to hear the pleading in McGee's voice and he kept going.

"Then you just don't care about living, is that it? So you just hide behind the heroics because if someone gets saved then no one will notice if you don't try and save yourself."

Tim had never thought of it that way, even though it was very, very true. But he wouldn't try to use saving someone else to get himself killed; he just didn't worry about getting killed while he was saving someone else. This implication that he did so out of selfishness finally made him bristle. He didn't yell or even raise his voice, but his words now had sharpness and sarcasm that resonated loud and clear.

"Right, because who cares if a couple of kids die. It's all about me."

"You know that's not what I meant. But what happens if you do die? What happens to the team? Did you ever stop to think that if we lost you it would destroy us? Honestly McGee it would be even worse than losing Kate and I can't handle that again!"

Wait. Wait. This was supposed to be about McGee. This was about Tim's issues. Not his. But the silence that followed this declaration coupled with the look of shock on his partner's face let Tony know that he had shared too much.

It was the epitome of freudian slips. DiNozzo hadn't given it a thought before, but now that he'd said it the whole room was heavy with the silent realization between the two men: that Tony was terrified of losing anyone else in his life. People they cared about came and went in this job and it hurt sometimes, and the typical therapist would claim this was related to the fact that his father had always walked in and out of his life without warning. But Tony was a grownup and he could handle a little rejection now and then. It had more to do with the fact that too many people had died on this job; they didn't leave but were taken. Not like his father, but like his mother. And even Kate would probably acknowledge the fact that _of course_ losing Tim would be harder on Tony. Kate had been a best friend, a confidant, and she'd kept him as mature as she was able to during the most cocky and immature years of his life. Losing her made him grow up fast and hardened his heart. But he'd known Tim for a decade now, and, albeit in different ways, they'd grown up together. McGee was not only his best friend, but like a brother. One that had started by fearing and looking up to DiNozzo. Now he was one of the best agents at NCIS and Tony was proud of him for it. Despite this progress, McGee was a constant, maybe the one thing Tony could count on staying the same. It might have been a little selfish, but he needed that.

DiNozzo trained his eyes on the corner of the room, over Tim's head in order to avoid eye contact. McGee, for his part, wasn't sure how to proceed. He felt it was his job to speak first, but what could he say to that? There was only one response that Tony wanted, and, with a tentative sigh, he gave it.

"You're right."

"What?"

"I said you're right. I…I'm not fine," McGee admitted, eyes on the floor. He couldn't bear to watch the inevitable expression that would appear on Tony's face when he said what he needed to. "I guess I haven't thought about my own life in a while. I…don't want to die, I just…living hasn't been all that great. I'm not trying to hide behind heroics, like you said. I really did want to save those kids."

"I didn't mean-"

"No I know, just, let me finish, okay? You were right. I ran into the fire before I knew about that family. I figured there had to be someone in there, but I was mostly running into the building because I needed to do something. I couldn't just stand there. And yeah, maybe something bad would have happened to me, but they can always get another agent to take my desk. That family couldn't just...replace their kids."

Cue the look of horror. The blood ran cold in Tony's veins when he realized what Tim was saying. He thought he was expendable. Easily replaced. He tried to speak again but McGee stopped him.

"I always knew that you guys would be upset if…something bad happened to me. That was never the problem. I didn't really think about how it might hurt you, though."

"It's not about me, Tim," DiNozzo finally got a word in. "But it did become about you when you lost whatever shreds of self-preservation you had. I'm not sure why or when it happened, but it did, McGee. You might not be suicidal but you don't give a damn about whatever happens to you and that's a problem too."

The junior agent looked up. His eyes were so full of emotion, emotion that he wasn't allowing himself to feel, that it hurt just to look into them.

"I know it is," he choked. "It's just…"

It's just that physical pain healed. Even if it didn't, it ended one way or another. But he'd been carrying the pain in his chest around for months and it never stopped, never got better. And he'd rather live with a few flesh wounds if it meant the he was actively doing good things, making some sort of difference. It numbed the real pain. Or rather, it made him forget that he was already numb. He didn't know- he'd refused himself a moment of genuine feeling for what felt like an eternity. He'd worked so hard to push down all of the thoughts, to will the pain away, that he was scared of having to face them.

"I've just felt numb, I guess. Not sad, not angry, just…tired. Of everything. It helps when I can save more people or get more killers behind bars, or help more on cases. Makes things worth while."

Tony couldn't believe his ears. "You were already doing that before." Tim appeared to disagree. "McGee, you don't have to prove anything to anyone. Not even yourself."

Tim tilted his head back ever so slightly and closed his eyes. "I can't help it."

Now for the big question. "What happened? What are you trying to distract yourself from?"

He really didn't want to do this, but it was too late to back out now. "It wasn't any one thing. I mean, nothing caused it, things just made it worse."

"Like breaking up with Delilah," Tony confirmed and his friend nodded. "What else?" When the younger man did not look like he was going to answer, DiNozzo prodded with a sigh and a weary, "Tim..." to get his friend talking.

"...Remember a few months back, when my dad was involved in our case?" Tim began, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Tony nodded. "Well, it turned out he was…is…sick. He's got cancer."

"Oh man," Tony said, his brow furrowing in sympathy. "I'm sorry Tim, I know how that feels. Is there any…?"

McGee shook his head. "No, he'd found out there was nothing they could do long before he told me. I wonder if he ever would have told me if we didn't see him then…"

"I'm sorry," Tony grimaced again.

"That's not why…I mean, it's awful, but my dad and I haven't been that close since I was…six, probably."

McGee tried to act blasé, but it was clear that it bothered him immensely, no matter how estranged he and his father were. Still, it was clear that even that wasn't all that was bothering him. He didn't continue the story on his own, so DiNozzo once again had to fish for information.

"How's Sarah taking all of this?"

When Tim flinched ever so slightly, Tony knew he'd hit the nerve he'd been looking for.

"She's not taking it…well," he said. "Sarah and our dad were always close. She wants to make him try treatment anyway, but he doesn't want it. He made it clear he doesn't. I told her I would make sure he was comfortable and taken care of…for the rest of….for as long as he needed."

"You're paying for it all?" DiNozzo asked and McGee nodded.

"Turns out after the divorce, our mom got most of their shared savings….and it's not like you get paid that much in the Navy. Even if you are an admiral. It's not a problem. It's the least I can do," Tim shrugged, swallowing the lump in his throat and forcing back the tears that had gathered in his eyes. "But Sarah thinks that since I'm paying for…hospice…that I should be paying for treatment. And I would-" he said quickly. "But my dad told us over and over that he'd rather…die the way he wants to."

"Where is Sarah now?"

Another shrug. "She transferred to Stanford a year ago. She comes back and forth as much as she can, but she has school. She's not really speaking to me right now."

Tony's frown broke into a look of sadness. Tim loved his sister, at one time he was willing to put his career on the line for her. Surely her anger at her brother was displaced stress- DiNozzo was a master at displacement- but it was hurting McGee.

He was almost afraid to ask…"What about your mom?"

"Their divorce was really bad, so she wants nothing to do with him. And I don't want to put her in between me and Sarah."

"What about your dad?"

"He's doing…ok, I guess. He's got the best home nurses in the area, but he's still working. During the day he can usually work up the strength to get into work and sit behind his desk. I can tell he just wants things to be normal for as long as they can be. He's still got a few months left," Tim finished with a fresh wave of sadness washing over him.

DiNozzo needed a stiff drink, and he felt that McGee probably did too. Still, he didn't move, focusing entirely on his pain-filled friend.

"Do you get to see him at all?" Tony asked, hoping his partner would have that at the very least.

"Sometimes," Tim said with another small, sharp intake of breath. "He doesn't really want me to see him…like that."

Though he added the last two words, DiNozzo could tell that McGee's father had pushed his son away, even now. Whether it be from pride (not wanting his son to see him in that condition) or something else, it made Tony's face heat up in poorly contained rage.

"Why have you been running yourself down at work, then?" the senior agent asked, his voice full of pity. "You know Gibbs would have given you time off if you told him what was going on-"

"I don't want time off," Tim said fiercely. "I need to be useful. I'm not being useful to anyone else right now, it's pretty damn clear!"

Another beat of silence. Another revelation. Another look of horror on Tony's face when he realized that someone, either Sarah or their father, must have told Tim he was "not useful," given the way he threw out the word now, as if it were something he'd been carrying on his shoulders for months- which was indeed the case.

Small pinpricks went up and down Tony's back. Finally, he could see the whole problem. Delilah and Tim break up, his dying father still refuses to really accept him, his sister blames McGee and his mother refuses to get in between them. He'd lost his whole family, it seemed, in the course of a few months. And now McGee had to deal with not only all of this, but these feelings of self-doubt that he'd apparently been struggling with for far too long. Feelings that his father had more than affirmed even while fighting cancer. Tony wouldn't wish the illness on anyone, but it angered him that Admiral McGee couldn't muster up some pride in his son even while Tim stepped forward to help support him. Depression had wrapped its viselike grip around his friend, and now Tim didn't have any self worth or sense of self preservation.

"Why didn't you tell us, McGee?" DiNozzo asked, though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

Another gasping, incredulous "laugh" escaped Tim's lips. "It was my problem to deal with. It's not like you guys could have helped, anyway."

He didn't say it with a hint of malice, because it was true. Money was not really the main concern in Tim's story, and Team Gibbs did not possess the cure for cancer. Or for family dysfunction. In fact, they were the physical embodiment of family dysfunction. And McGee was never the type to reach out when he needed emotional support. Either you had to reach out to him, or he would suffocate in his own despair. After knowing his friend for ten years, Tony understood that much. McGee didn't deal with stressful things the way anyone else on the team did. Ziva exercised and practiced with her weaponry skills until she felt better. Gibbs retreated into his basement and drank and carved wood until his hands were even more callused and his thoughts were soaked in bourbon. Tony became sullen and bitter but spoke even more frequently, lashing out, taking his feelings out on the nearest possible victim. And they all ended up in Gibbs' basement. Except for McGee, the most introverted of the group, who took time to mull things over on his own. He'd been raised by a man who despised anything that could possibly be interpreted as weakness, and it showed even after all these years on the team. But that wasn't the point. The point was that while everyone else exerted the negativity, Tim internalized it. He felt every case, every victim, and while that was sometimes a good thing, he needed an outlet in order to expel these repressed emotions. But they'd been working on miserable case after miserable case, and paired with these new revelations….well, it was no wonder it all had caught up with McGee. It would have been enough to send any of them into a tailspin. And like Tim had said: it wasn't any one of those things. It was everything. It had been a long time coming, but he hadn't expected it, hadn't foreseen it, and it ran him over full-force.

Worst of all, Tony had missed it.

His best friend and younger brother had been drowning in his own mind for weeks, no- months, and none of them realized. The signs were so stupidly obvious and they'd paid no attention. It had taken multiple near-death experiences before anyone had noticed, and McGee had almost been killed in the meantime. There was no excuse, and Tony was ravaged with guilt.

Surprisingly, Tim put together the last piece of the story without prompting. "I volunteered for the task force to get away for a while. Like a vacation, but one that would keep me busy."

"Keep you busy…" DiNozzo echoed. "You mean, keep you worth your spot on the team. Keep you useful." McGee said nothing, but his expression gave it away that, yes, that was exactly what he'd been thinking.

"Tim, you- you need help. You need to stop running away from this. Your luck's going to run out and sooner or later you're not gonna make it out of whatever stunt you try to pull."

McGee let out a ragged breath. If possible he looked even worse than he had minutes before and DiNozzo started to worry that he might pass out. But even though he did feel terrible physically, Tim's rapidly-worsening appearance was due to the turmoil under the surface. Tony's words were cracking his reserve but he didn't want to deal with whatever came next, so he struggled. Still, saner minds prevailed, and the sad, somewhat scared look on the senior agent's face made him feel guilty.

"It sounds like you need some help, too," he said, and Tony's eyebrows raised. He'd hoped that Tim would forget the little slip-up he'd had about losing other people.

"Probably. And I promise you I'll talk to Ducky or Kate's sister or something. But you're the one I'm worried about right now, Tim. I didn't run into a burning building or sign up for a suicide mission today. You did both."

Dammit. This hurt more than he could have guessed. McGee's chest heaved ever so slightly- a silent, broken sob. His eyes closed to prevent the impending tears from spilling over.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't…"

He had to stop or he'd start crying for sure. The dam was breaking and he hung his head, attempting to still the sobs that wracked his body. Tony went over to his friend and pulled him in for a brief hug. He'd only ever genuinely done it once before, during their little team group-hug after Mike Franks' death. But this was different, though. Less awkward. More painful, but with the absence of Ziva and Abby, there were far less tears.

"No, I'm sorry, McGee," he said, stepping back. "You have nothing to apologize for."


	7. Chapter 7

The movie had been an odd change of pace after their talk, but one much needed. Both agents were worn out. They'd agreed not to discuss things further that night, instead enjoying the pizza, and Tim went to bed halfway through the movie. Tony had stayed on the couch, not quite willing to leave the younger man alone, though he spent hours attempting to decide what to do next.

He'd have to tell Gibbs what was going on. There was no doubt in his mind. Of course the main concern was that his best friend was in trouble... But as Senior Field Agent, Tony would also face serious consequences if something were to happen to McGee on a case, and it became known that DiNozzo had let him continue to work despite his state of mind. Vance's protocol be damned, the senior agent would be flayed alive by Ziva and Abby. Gibbs would probably help- or at least stand by and watch with satisfaction..and come to think of it, Ducky and Jimmy probably would as well. Still, none of that could compare to the torturous guilt Tony would feel should anything happen to his best friend. And it wouldn't. He would make sure of that.

…But how? The first order of business was assuring McGee did not go on that mission. Under no circumstances would that end well for the junior agent. Putting himself in a literal minefield while he was so determined to prove himself, to be "useful," was a guaranteed death sentence. Tony could try to convince Tim to back out, but if that didn't work, he'd have to go to Gibbs, who would have to take it to Vance, who would have to refer to Ducky to assess whether Tim were really in an unfit state of mind to join the overseas taskforce. All of this going behind his friend's back hurt to even think about. Sure, Tony had done worse in the past, but it had always been a prank- a mean joke at the worst. This was a matter of McGee's wellbeing and any mistake could end horribly wrong.

This worrying kept him up all night, so that by the time he heard McGee's alarm clock go off, DiNozzo hadn't slept a wink. Still, it was a good thing to see Tim emerge from his bedroom looking a tiny bit healthier than he had the night before. The younger man looked like hell, a few hours of rest couldn't change that, but he'd slept through the night which was something Tony suspected hadn't happened in months.

"Hey," McGee said in surprise. "I didn't know you slept over."

"Well I had to finish the movie. You're just lucky I didn't draw on your face or anything."

"I don't even remember getting into bed," Tim admitted, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Coffee machine's on a timer so there should be some ready in a second."

"Great," Tony said sincerely, groaning a little when he stood and several joints in his back crackled.

McGee cleared his throat a little then quietly began, "Tony?"

"Yeah, McGee?"

"…Thanks."

"Not a problem, Tim…but you know you can't go on that mission, right? You're not fit to."

"I don't want to back out just yet, Tony. It might be a good change of pace," Tim argued without a hint of force behind his words.

"Tim, you should talk to someone about this…someone that's not me I mean. Someone who's trained to help you with everything. What about Kate's sister? Rachel knows us pretty well so it's not like talking to a stranger."

"I don't want to talk to Dr. Cranston," McGee insisted.

"It doesn't really matter because you need to. You look a hell of a lot better from one good night's sleep after talking to me. Imagine how much better you'd feel after telling a therapist everything. There's no shame in it, Tim. Hell, you already know that I've gone a couple times."

"I know that," Tim said, pouring himself a cup of coffee and handing a mug to his friend. He started coughing before he could continue speaking. "Ugh. Ducky said I'd feel delayed effects of smoke inhalation but I thought that meant a couple hours, not a day later."

"Yeah, that'll happen," Tony winced in sympathy. "Lung damage is never fun."

McGee's lips curled up in the beginnings of a smile- another thing that had probably not happened in far too long. But it didn't quite reach his eyes, which only made what Tony had to say even harder.

"Tim…you shouldn't even be going to work today. You hardly look fit to be out of your apartment."

"I'm fine, Tony. Really. I'm sorry I worried you, but I feel better now. Give me a few more days and I'll be back to normal."

The older man was caught between calling bullshit on this statement and frowning in concern. Either Tim was already retreating back behind his facade, or he genuinely thought he was okay now, which was clearly untrue. If the latter, then he could get himself in even more trouble- it's one thing to be desperate, but it's far more dangerous to overestimate one's own limits, both physical and emotional.

DiNozzo said nothing and watched his friend carefully from the corner of his eye. He knew he'd have to tell Gibbs about this, but if McGee knew that he was going to do it, the junior agent would be mortified. There was a reason Tim didn't go to their boss about this, and Tony knew that McGee had only revealed his struggles the previous night in a moment of weakness. The fact that it was a secret, that Tim would prefer if Tony kept it to himself, well…that went without saying.

But Tim put his friend in a corner when he said it anyway.

"Hey, don't tell Gibbs about this, ok? I don't want him to bench me just because of some personal issues."

Tony did nothing, and Tim took his silence for the affirmative and went to shower.

It wasn't personal issues- his dad, his sister, his ex-girlfriend, none of those things were the reason for his current state of mind. It wasn't anything Tony could fix easily, and he knew it. Whatever needed to be done, DiNozzo realized that things were going to get worse before they got better.

…..

Since he didn't have to shower and was already dressed, Tony left Tim's house thirty minutes before his friend did, making it one of those rare times where DiNozzo actually made it into work before McGee. Pulling his backup clothes and toothbrush from his desk drawer, the senior agent was actually glad that he used to spend so many nights 'out' with women- if not, he might never have started the habit of keeping the backups in the first place. And what was even luckier was that he'd made it in before Ziva and McGee, meaning he could talk to Gibbs alone.

When the team leader entered the bullpen with his coffee and saw that Tony was the first into work, his eyebrows raised in surprise but he merely glanced at his agent's wrinkled suit from the day before and said, "Long night, DiNozzo?"

"Sort of, Boss. Actually, we need to talk about something."

It was rare that his agents approached him about an issue at work, but Tony's appearance, coupled with the circles under his eyes and the fact that he was so early, told Gibbs that it was important.

"Ok," the older man nodded, picking up his coffee and gesturing towards the elevator, and Tony was about to follow Jethro into his "office" when the doors opened and McGee stepped off.

"Morning, Boss. Oh hey, Tony," Tim said, a hint of cheer in his voice. It was amazing the effect one good night's sleep could have. Gibbs noticed that while his agent looked relatively better, he still looked like hell. As the youngest of the three went to his desk, Tony backed up and said with feigned nonchalance, "It's ok, Boss, it can wait."

Gibbs' expression of bemusement went away when DiNozzo subtly glanced back at McGee, letting Jethro know that Tim would be the subject of their conversation. Apparently, Tony didn't want McGee to know they were talking about him. Gibbs nodded and the two went back to their desks. Ziva soon entered the bullpen and after some banter about how DiNozzo was never at work on time, the team leader spoke up.

"Cold cases today. McGee, you and Ziva go down to records and find us something."

"But Boss, can't I just do it on the computer?"

Gibbs gave his agent the trademark glare, and Tim went silent.

"Come on, McGee, it will be a good change of scenery," Ziva teased, as unaware as Tim about what was going on.

After they left, the two older members of the Major Case Response Team entered the elevator and promptly shut it off.

"Alright, DiNozzo," Gibbs invited. "What's wrong?"

Without further prompting, Tony launched into his story, explaining McGee's odd behavior over the previous few months, pointing out the junior agent's unhealthy, exhausted demeanor, mentioning the overseas mission, and closing with the conversation they'd had the night before. Gibbs listened in silence, his eyebrows knitting together with every detail. Soon, guilt and annoyance at himself bubbled up in his chest. Tim had clearly been unwell for a while, and he'd missed it.

"He did a pretty decent job of hiding it, Boss," Tony said as if reading his mind. "We were all tired and stressed. That's why I wrote it off as nothing."

Jethro nodded, and suddenly noticed how upset DiNozzo looked.

"You did the right thing by telling me, Tony."

"I know, but it sure doesn't feel that way. I think we should tell Ducky about this, too."

Jethro nodded in agreement and flipped on the elevator before directing it to the basement. Tony looked at the floor, hoping he'd done the right thing by telling Gibbs. Honestly, he wanted to tell Ziva and Abby, because he knew that as McGee's friends, they'd want to know what was going on so that they might help. But Tim wanted to keep this to himself, so it was probably best that as few people knew about these problems as possible.

While Ducky was no psychiatrist, he was trained in forensic psychology, and as a doctor he knew enough about mental health to be useful. Plus, he acted as the team's proxy physician, and if Tim wouldn't see Dr. Cranston, then at least one licensed medical professional should know of his problems. Besides, it would be good to have someone on their side who was both level-headed and capable of dealing with complicated emotions. The only person on their team who fit the bill was Doctor Mallard.

The doors to autopsy swished open, and Ducky and Jimmy both looked up in surprise.

"Ah, Jethro. Tony," Ducky greeted, glancing at the clock. "We don't have a case already, do we? I'm afraid both of us just got here."

"No case, Duck," Gibbs said, throwing Palmer a glance that Jimmy knew all too well.

"I…I'm gonna go get some breakfast," the autopsy gremlin said; it was too early for him to be needed anywhere else, so he figured he'd make the most of the free time.

When he was gone, Tony retold his story, and the doctor listened intently, asking questions on occasion, and by the end of DiNozzo's little speech, he wore a similar expression to the one Gibbs had on his face.

"Oh dear," the elderly ME sighed. "I'd thought something was the matter, but I assumed it was just stress. Obviously I was wrong. I'm guessing he asked you not to tell anyone about his struggles?"

"Yeah," Tony muttered, feeling miserable that he'd broken his friend's trust.

"You did the right thing by telling us, Tony," Ducky assured him, though the senior agent didn't feel any better hearing it the second time. In fact, he felt like a child for telling on his friend like this. Like a snitch.

"So the question is, how do we help Timothy through this without making him feel like he's being ganged-up on."

"First, we gotta bench him," Gibbs said.

"No, Boss, you can't send him home. It'll just make things worse."

"DiNozzo…" Gibbs began, his frustration apparent.

"Actually Jethro, I agree with Tony," Ducky put in gently. "If Timothy's greatest fear at the moment is the idea of being useless to you, if he's convinced that you all would be more than able to carry on without him, then sending him home would only prove it. Besides, it is very likely that he keeps so busy in order to distract himself from his own thoughts. Time off would allow him to focus entirely on his problems, which, given his current state of mind, might be dangerous if he does so without the help of a professional."

"Sure, Duck, but he can't go into the field like that," Gibbs argued, already upset with himself that he'd missed all the signs of McGee's distress. This debate was not helping.

"You're right, but I think that-"

The doctor was interrupted when the doors to autopsy swished open and Vance appeared.

"Director," Ducky greeted in surprise. "It's rare that I see you down here."

"I wanted to talk to you about Agent McGee, although something tells me that's what you're doing right now."

"How the hell could you let him sign up for a taskforce without telling me, Leon?"

"Save it, Gibbs, it's not my decision to announce private information about an agent until I have reason to believe that there's something wrong. Which is why I wanted to talk to Doctor Mallard. I appreciate the files you sent, but I just heard something about Agent McGee running into a burning building yesterday? Why didn't you tell me anything, Gibbs?"

"I reported it, Leon. It had nothing to do with our case."

"Fine, but I'm requiring that the agents in the running to join the taskforce undergo a psych evaluation before they're officially cleared to submit their names for consideration. I want the agent chosen to come back alive and that's not going to happen if they're likely to play hero in a war zone."

Tony bristled at the implications, but his Boss reacted with real anger.

"That's McGee you're talking about, Leon," the team leader said, getting up in the director's face. "He saved a bunch of kids yesterday."

"Then put his name in for an award and make sure he stays here where we need him. Don't give me that look, Gibbs, I wasn't accusing Agent McGee of being a glory hound. But your team is famous for taking personal risks and I thought McGee was the exception. I'm not gonna lose the only agent willing to take that desk because he's picked up some bad habits from you."

"I think that is a good idea," Ducky interrupted before things could get too heated. "The psychological evaluations. It should be required of anyone entering a task force; not just for Timothy, but for all the agents."

"Good," Vance nodded. "I just wanted to consult with someone who knows what they're talking about before I called in the psych team."

"Let me know if you need anything else, Director."

"I will. And Gibbs, if there's something going on with your team that you're not telling me…"

"I'll take care of it, Leon."

Vance nodded, knowing he wouldn't get anything else from the team leader while Ducky and DiNozzo were there. With a final glance at Gibbs, he left autopsy and the two agents turned towards the ME quizzically.

"If what you've told us is true, Anthony" Ducky explained. "Then there is no way that Timothy will pass a psychological evaluation, even if he has been skilled at hiding things from us. If he fails it, then he will be required to talk to me and to a psychiatrist before he's cleared for field work again. Perhaps I can convince him to get the help he needs.

….

A few hours later, Tim left the exam room with his ears tinged pink. The other agents applying for the taskforce position looked up, waiting for their names to be called. He stormed out the room, clutching a handful of documents. The psychologist who'd conducted the test followed behind.

"I will be in Director Vance's office as soon as this is over," the man said. Tim merely nodded and left.

Tony looked up when Tim walked past the bullpen, and was surprised by the stormy expression on the younger man's face.

"Hey, McGee, what's wrong?"

"I didn't qualify for the mission," Tim muttered, not stopping at his desk. DiNozzo felt awful for taking the spot away from his friend, but he knew he'd done the right thing. If Tim couldn't even convince a stranger that he was alright, then he definitely should not be allowed to join a taskforce in an extremely dangerous corner of the world.

Tony got up and followed McGee. "Sorry man. But those emails get sent out all the time. The next one-"

"They said I shouldn't even qualify for field duty. I have to do a full psych review before I'm allowed back at work."

"That's probably not a bad thing-"

McGee stopped short, almost causing Tony to run into him, but the younger man looked angry for another reason. "You told Vance, didn't you?"

Damn, DiNozzo often forgot how astute Tim could be. "No! I swear I didn't, McGee."

It wasn't a lie, at least. He hadn't told the director a thing.

"Sure." It was clear that Tim didn't believe him, and he turned, heading for the stairs up to the Director's office and shaking off the hand DiNozzo put on his shoulder. "Leave me alone, Tony. I have to go get my job back."


	8. Chapter 8

McGee sat in one of the chairs in Vance's office, staring over the director's head while the two listened to the reasons why Tim was no longer qualified for duty. Ducky sat in another chair, glancing sadly between the psychologist and the agent. Gibbs had been called in and was standing in the corner, arms folded, watching McGee closely. Everyone could feel his discomfort and embarrassment, and it was no wonder; a laundry list of Tim's emotional (and resulting physical) weaknesses was being read aloud, drifting in the air between the small audience.

"Though he opted not to discuss the reasons with me, Agent McGee is not fit to be in the field. His actions over the past few months make that perfectly clear. Acting as bait to lure gunmen into the forest, running into a burning building, this list goes on and on," the man said, glancing down at the list of instances he described. "Not to mention the actual evaluation; he answered unsatisfactorily in more than half the questions I asked of him."

Tim's cheeks burned. He didn't exactly want to jump into this conversation, but they didn't have to talk about him like he wasn't there. Ducky and Gibbs' unsurprised and grim expressions told McGee that they'd already known something was wrong…which meant Tony had told them. (Vance hadn't been able to fully conceal his surprise at this turn of events, so the agent supposed he'd been wrong. Tony hadn't told the director about their conversation, he'd just told everyone else who mattered in this situation.)

"Thank you," the director said to the psychologist, ending his well-meaning but upsetting spiel. "Doctor Mallard with take over from here."

The man nodded and handed Ducky the file containing McGee's psych evaluations from every test since he'd joined NCIS. Once he was gone, it was silent.

"Well, I don't have any choice but to change your field status until this is settled," Vance said, having the decency to look almost apologetic.

"Yes, Director," Tim said with all the politeness he could muster. "But with all due respect I think this is a waste of time…What do I need to do to get my job back?"

"Your job is still yours, McGee," Gibbs said.

"That's right, Timothy, you're still able to work at your desk. It's a matter of dealing with witnesses and carrying a weapon," Ducky said.

"I know, but I'd prefer to be back in the field."

"I understand. You just need to go through a full physical and psychological evaluation, and then we will decide what needs to be done before you're ready to get back out there."

"Nothing needs to be done," Tim said, looking to Gibbs for help. "Boss, if I've done anything less than what I normally do-"

"You've done more than normal, McGee," Jethro said. "That's not the problem. It's why you're doing it."

The junior agent sighed. "So Tony did tell you?"

"Only what he had to," Ducky said.

"You realize that as senior agent he was required to report the fact that you're not in a completely healthy state of mind," Vance put in. "I know you told him…whatever it is that you told him in confidence, but if something were to happen to you before he reported it, Agent DiNozzo would lose his job."

"Nothing would happen-"

"You've come close to death on the job more than once in the past month, and multiple times in the past three," Ducky reminded him.

All the arguments drained from Tim, and he let out a sigh, shoulders slumping. It once again hit Gibbs just how exhausted his agent was looking.

"Ok," McGee said softly. "What do I have to do?"

"First we will get you those tests. Would you prefer I administered them, or someone from the usual evaluation team?"

"I'd prefer to get it done with you, Ducky. If you don't mind."

The doctor smiled in spite of himself. After all of this, McGee still couldn't help but be polite.

"Not at all. Let's start now. If you'll excuse us, Director."

"After that, Doctor Mallard will notify us of what further actions need to be taken before you're let back into full-time status," Vance said.

Ducky and McGee left the room, and Gibbs and the director turned to each other.

"Damn," Vance muttered. "Why is it always your team?"

"They're the best at what they do, Leon. The same things that make them the best make their real lives harder."

The director nodded. "And your team isn't exactly the best at asking for help."

Gibbs frowned. "McGee most of all."

"I'd find it surprising if I'd never met his father. But whatever the problem is, that's just going to make things harder for him. Keep me updated, Jethro."

Gibbs left, nodding as he went.

Meanwhile, Tony sat at his desk, staring at his computer though the screen was black. He just wanted to know what was going on upstairs. Also, he knew an unpleasant conversation with Tim was in order; since he'd broken his friend's trust only an hour and a half after his friend asked him not to say anything. He wasn't going to apologize, since McGee was in desperate need of help, but he did feel very sorry for putting the younger man in such a situation. He'd just finished telling Gibbs how they couldn't put Tim on the sidelines, and already the junior agent was struggling to make sure such a thing didn't happen.

"What is going on, Tony?" Ziva's voice snapped him from his thoughts.

"What?"

"What is going on with McGee?" Ziva clarified. "It's very clear he's not acting like himself, and now he's upstairs with Gibbs and the director…and Ducky. Something is wrong."

DiNozzo sighed. Usually in situations like this, Ziva would follow him into the bathroom and ultimately hound him until he told her whatever it was she wanted to know. But that was their relationship; Ziva was territorial of Tony. The relationship between her and McGee was very different: the ex-Mossad agent was much more protective of Tim, most likely because they were such good friends, and because he was the first one to really welcome her onto the team. And despite their glaringly different personalities, they were both introverts- they understood each other. So she was more likely to respect Tim's space if he needed it because his need for privacy was not in and of itself a cry for help, the way it would be with Tony.

"I can't tell you, Ziva," Tony said. "It's McGee's business and he doesn't want everyone to know right now."

He hoped his tone had just enough warning in it for her to understand that Tim really didn't want everyone bothering him, and she nodded, though the senior agent saw her send a worried glance at McGee's empty desk.

"Is he in danger, at least? Is he sick?"

Tony looked back at Ziva, almost wishing he could tell her everything. "No, he's not. Don't worry, Gibbs is gonna take care of it."

She nodded then looked up. DiNozzo turned to see who she was looking at on the catwalk, and frowned when Ducky and Tim walked down the strip and into the conference room. Surely the two could feel their gaze, but McGee pointedly looked ahead. His behavior wasn't petulant, he was simply worried about the outcome of this series of tests and examinations. He couldn't bear the thought of losing his job. Sure, they would probably just send him down to IT or something, but the thought of being chained to a desk while his friends were upstairs working on cases was somehow even worse.

Gibbs left the director's office just as Tim and Ducky disappeared from view. The team leader glanced at his agents and they went back to work. It was going to be a long day.

...

The physical test had come first. It was the same as any other annual physical, and while it only took a few minutes, it had revealed more problems than previously thought.

"Well, the effects of the smoke inhalation seem to be steadily going away, so your lungs are otherwise fine. Your injuries from that episode in the woods have healed nicely…though you are suffering from exhaustion, that much is certain…" Ducky tsked as he took notes on the official report. "Also, I'm concerned that you haven't been eating as much as you should. You're a sneeze away from a nasty case of the flu."

Tim grinned a little. "Thank god it is't flu season then."

Ducky chuckled despite the morbid situation. "If it were flu season you would have been in bed a week ago and we'd never have noticed anything was wrong."

McGee frowned. "Nothing is wrong, Ducky, really."

The older man sighed. "I know it seems that way, but apparently, yesterday you told Tony that you weren't fine. You must know that your behavior has been destructive recently."

The agent didn't answer, and Ducky went on to test his reflexes and reaction times.

"Well, you don't seem to move as quickly as usual, but that's a result of the exhaustion. I assume you've had trouble sleeping for quite some time now?"

There was no use in lying. They both knew the answer.

"No, besides last night, I haven't slept well at all for the past few months."

"I see. I wasn't there, but it seems to me that your restful sleep last night is directly related to getting some things off your chest."

"I don't know. Maybe," Tim answered honestly.

"Well, with that, I think we can conclude the physical. You would be fine were it not for the exhaustion and slight malnourishment. Honestly, that in and of itself is enough to send you home for a week. But let's finish the psychological evaluation."

First, the ME asked McGee the same list of questions he'd answered earlier that day. This query was taken directly from the MMPI test meant to pinpoint a person's aggression, judgement, self-perception, relationships, regard for authority, and perception of right and wrong. Once again, Tim failed half of the categories, even while actively trying to pass. But when that was finished, the two moved on to a more genuine method of evaluation: discussion.

While Ducky had only limited training in this area, he knew enough to ask the right questions. Tim, to his chagrin, found that the doctor already knew about his father's health and his sister's ultimatums. He shook these questions off as well as he could, insisting that he didn't blame his sister.

"She's upset. If she needs to take it out on someone, then I don't mind."

"Does she often take her stress out on you?"

"Well, not…I mean, she was the youngest, right? So she got the younger child treatment, but I never really minded because I liked being an older brother."

"That's good, but over the course of your lives, she often takes her stress out on you?"

"Not…out on me, exactly. She gets angry, and I'm usually the one she gets angry at. Like all siblings. It never really affected us in the long run."

"The health of your father is serious, though. Do you think that might affect your relationship?"

"She's grieving. Her and my dad were a little closer than I was with him."

"That doesn't mean you're not grieving also."

"Oh no, of course not. He is still my dad…" Tim looked pained, but instead of pushing the subject, Ducky switched gears.

"So in regards to your behavior in the field. I have here that you have been injured multiple times over the past few months from various cases."

"All minor. Scrapes and bruises."

"Besides the time you ended up in the hospital."

"Right."

"Do you consider these injuries to be worthwhile?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think that getting hurt was worth it, in regards to what was accomplished each time you did get hurt?"

"Well yeah. I mean, if I have to chase down someone to stop them from hurting someone else, I will. It doesn't matter to me."

"Why doesn't it matter?"

"I don't understand, Ducky. What do you mean? My job is to stop criminals from harming innocent people."

"At the cost of your own life?"

"If necessary."

Ducky blinked. Tim looked back at him, perfectly at ease with his statement. He didn't realize that what he'd said was incredibly worrisome.

"Alright…but what about yesterday? The fire. You could have been killed."

"I had to do something. If those kids had died and I'd just stood by and watched…"

"The firefighters were on their way."

"They didn't have that kind of time. Besides, I wanted to be useful."

"Yes, I've noticed that you've seemed eager to be useful as of late. Do you feel that you were not useful before?" Ducky pushed.

"Of course. But if you're not doing all that you can do, then you're wasting time."

This went on for over an hour. The good doctor asked as much as he dared, and Tim, though politely answering every question, volunteered as little as possible. Still, his frame of mind was clearly off-kilter, which of course required serious action. Eventually, Ducky wrote some notes on the report and closed the file.

"So am I cleared for duty now?" McGee asked hopefully.

"Not yet, I'm afraid."

At the younger man's fearful expression, the ME continued. "I am really very sorry, but it's clear that I don't have a choice. You've endangered yourself enough times in the recent past that it is no longer a coincidence. And the things I've heard from you and from Tony indicate that you need some real counseling from a trained professional."

"Ducky, all the things I told Tony were just in a moment-"

"A moment of weakness. I understand that, but in this moment of weakness you mentioned that you don't care about living as much as you should, that you feel replaceable and useless. You've told me as much just from our conversation."

A lump formed in McGee's throat, and he tried to breathe calmly without indicating to Ducky how painful this was for him.

"A moment of weakness is not a moment of lies. I have to take it seriously and you should, too. I don't mean to belittle you Timothy, but if you get any worse then you could become a danger to others, not just yourself."

"What?" Tim's head snapped up at that, alarmed.

"If you get yourself hurt, you might leave the rest of your team vulnerable. When you ran into that fire, Jethro followed you. And I know that protecting innocent bystanders is far more difficult when you're consumed with the need to be actively doing something hazardous….That type of mindset would only impede your success as part of a taskforce. And adding a firearm to that mix is unwise."

Tim let that last implication go, wishing this conversation would just end.

"So, as I was saying, I have no choice but to recommend you for mandatory counseling sessions. I request at least two appointments, but the psychiatrist will determine when you are again ready to take the field-duty test."

Ducky had done this before, but he couldn't help but feel bad for cornering McGee in this way. There was no doubt in his mind that the counseling was necessary, but the whole idea had been to avoid making Tim feel like he was outnumbered.

"Ducky, please, I don't want to talk to the staff doctor."

"That's quite alright. Any licensed psychiatrist will do." Seeing the hesitation on McGee's face, the elderly man sighed. "I am sorry. But the choice is yours. You can see someone a couple times a week, and you will get your job back to the way you want it."

Tim closed his eyes. Everything was falling apart in front of him. And worst of all, his stress and pain stemmed from being trapped in situations he had no control over- mandatory psych sessions just to get his job back did not help the feeling of entrapment go away.

"Fine," he croaked. "I'll go to see Dr. Cranston."

Once Ducky turned his findings over to Gibbs and the director, Dr. Rachel Cranston was called and an appointment was made. Tim wasn't sure if the fact that she was Kate's sister made things easier or much, much harder. He'd spoken to her before, sure, but that was more for her benefit than his, and it had been mandatory for the entire team. This time she would expect him to really open up and he didn't think he could handle that. She reminded him of Kate so much it was ridiculous.

He would see her that Wednesday and that Friday and then they would discuss how long he would need to continue this therapy. Ducky warned that it could be weeks or longer, but whatever it took to getting back to normal, McGee would do.

Still, it didn't help his mood that Gibbs sent him home for the rest of the week. It wasn't ideal, but it had less to do with his mental health and more to do with physical health. Tim still looked like he would be knocked down by the slightest breeze, and Ducky insisted that he address the exhaustion before he went to see Dr. Cranston.

He finally exited Vance's office for the last time that day, and, ignoring Tony's gaze and Ziva's glances, Tim packed up and went home. He'd been skeptical, thinking there was no way he'd be able to sleep after the day's events, but his body was close to giving out and McGee was asleep before he'd finished changing out of his work clothes.

….

Tony ended up in Gibbs' basement that night. Of course, the boss had been expecting him and the door was unlocked.

Not that it would have been locked anyway.

"You did the right thing, DiNozzo," Jethro said as Tony came down the stairs. Hearing yet again didn't make him feel any better.

"Wish McGee would see it that way."

"He will." Tim was nothing if not logical, and once he was thinking clearly, he'd see that DiNozzo had acted in his best interest. Hell, he probably realized it now and just didn't feel ready to acknowledge it.

"I'm not sorry I did it," Tony said. "I don't think there was another way. He processes things differently than we do. I know I clam up every once and a while, or I talk to much, but all it takes is a slap on the head and I'm sharing all my secrets like a little girl."

Gibbs smirked, though it fell into a frown when Tony muttered. "He's really got it backwards. He thinks that he'd just be replaced, that if something happened to him, we'd all get over it and some new guy would just fill his spot."

The team leader frowned deeper. Vance had mentioned that no one would even be willing to join the team, much less fill McGee's shoes. He hadn't realized that Tim didn't know just how much he was needed in their little family, even outside of their work at NCIS. Guilt gnawed at the edges of his mind but he willed them away. McGee was in trouble and Tony felt miserable about the whole thing- this was no time to let guilt distract him.

Pushing down and ignoring one's emotions- just a sample of the healthy habits Team Gibbs exercised on a regular basis. Tony seemed to read Jethro's thoughts because he said, "None of us have ever been much better at handling tough situations."

"What about his dad," the older man changed the subject. Tony had only given a rough outline of their friend's issues earlier that day. He knew the Admiral to be a tough man, and that he was very hard on Tim, but even with his illness, it didn't make sense for him to be so distant from his son. Gibbs had no tolerance for parents who didn't love their kids enough. "He's gotta deal with that, too."

"He told me he was upset about it, obviously, but I think that's only a small part of it. The guy's been estranged from him for most of his life."

He was right. It wasn't so much that Tim had to face his actual problems as he needed to face the unseemly amount of emotions that had come with the problems. He'd been so focused on trying to move forward that he was just dragging it all with him; just carrying it on his shoulders while it threatened to crush him.

They sat there for a while, the basement quiet save for the sounds of Gibbs' woodworking. DiNozzo considered calling Tim, but he knew that no amount of talking could fix things between the two of them until McGee had talked with Dr. Cranston for a while. Not that Tim would listen to him at the moment anyway after he'd spilled all of the younger man's secrets- apologies wouldn't cut it this time.


	9. Chapter 9

Dr. Rachel Cranston regarded her patient sadly. This was Tim's third session with her and they'd yet to make any progress. McGee sat facing her, waiting for her next question expectantly, but clearly not allowing himself to get anything out of their conversation.

After the first two meetings and a long discussion with Doctor Mallard over the phone, Rachel had agreed that the agent was in no way fit to be in the field where he posed a serious danger to himself. McGee, for all his logic and thoughtfulness, refused to see it that way, and while he was never anything less than cordial, he also never let his guard down during these therapeutic sessions, no matter what she did to make him feel safe and comfortable. Despite this, he was no closer to opening up.

"Tim, you don't have to be so formal," she assured him for what felt like the hundredth time. "We're here for your benefit. Relax."

McGee leaned back in his seat. "Sorry, Dr. Cranston."

"It's ok," she smiled. "You just keep looking like you're about to bolt from your chair."

His ears tinged pink around the edges, which caused the doctor to smile a little more. Rachel had heard Kate describe her team eight years before she'd actually been able to meet them for their psychological evaluations. They'd all revealed to her how much they had changed since Kate's death…how much they had changed because of Kate's death. It hurt to hear, but it made Rachel happy to meet the people her sister had loved so much. Even during their brief meeting, when he had been the model of perfect mental health, Dr. Cranston could tell that McGee wasn't very forthcoming about his life or his innermost thoughts in the way that Tony DiNozzo was. In fact, even though Kate had mentioned how Gibbs and Tony were alike in so many ways, Tim was really much more like Jethro in that respect. But what had surprised Rachel most upon their first meeting was the fact that McGee hardly resembled the young man Kate had discussed all that time before. The kid of 2005 had been perpetually sheepish, eager to please, self-conscious, a little on the overweight side; all the makings of a rookie. The man she'd met in 2011 was self-assured, thin and fit, experienced but still eager to please. And whenever he'd blush or get fidgety, Rachel could see the remains of the long-gone newbie who'd looked up to her sister.

Still, all of this was more helpful than harmful in their patient-doctor relationship, because she had an idea of his life, of his personal development, and his work life. And while she never picked favorites among her patients, she was especially determined to help one of her sister's old friends.

"So, how has your father been this week?" she asked.

"Well his nurse called and said that it was a good couple days. You know. He has good days and bad days."

"That's good at least. Have you talked to your sister about any of this recently? If I recall, you mentioned that you talked to her about three weeks ago?"

"No, we haven't talked since then."

"…Are you alright with that?"

"Sarah needs her time to work through what's going on with our dad. I understand that."

"You didn't answer my question, though," Dr. Cranston pointed out gently.

This was the first time she'd called him out on avoiding her questions; Tim started as if he'd been caught committing a crime. Most patients burst into tears and spilled their guts five minutes into their first session, but some, namely the ones that were forced to see her, put up a wall that took time to break down. But these patients didn't frustrate her, because they were the ones that needed her the most. She was willing to wait and help McGee knock the walls down.

"Well…I mean, it hurts, I won't lie," Tim shrugged to hide how much it actually did pain him.

"Good, good. Thank you for telling me that," she encouraged. "Have you tried calling her?"

"I called and texted her last week, no response."

"What about your grandmother? Has she been involved in any of this?"

"Penny's out of the country right now. Sarah will talk to her, so she's been like a go-between, and the nurse has told me that Sarah calls to check up on dad every once in a while. But I'm not gonna ask Penny to get too involved right now."

"Why not? Don't you deserve some peace of mind?"

McGee opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again and swallowed. "Can we talk about something else, please?" he asked, the pleading clear in his voice.

"No problem," she soothed. It was only his third visit and she didn't want to scare him away. "How are things going at work?"

That was a whole other complicated matter. Well, complicated wasn't the word. In actuality it was pretty simple: Tim had to sit at his goddamn desk while the rest of the team went out and did real investigative work. That's not to say he wasn't doing real work…it just didn't feel that way.

The complicated part was the awkwardness that now settled over the bullpen. McGee had yet to really talk to Tony about what had happened, so the two only really spoke during work, and only about work-related things. Ziva, Tony and Gibbs had all gone through similar stages in their lives, so they knew to let Tim deal with things in his own time- he just wanted to work, so they let him. Still, they could feel his unhappiness about being chained to his desk, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. It weighed on all of them; for McGee, it was stress. For them, it was guilt. But Tim could feel their guilt and just wished they'd let it go. It was a vicious cycle.

"Things are ok," McGee said. "They'd be a lot better if I could work in the field, though."

He said it without a hint of anger, and Rachel sighed. "I know, but until you really talk to me about all the things that are bothering you, I can't properly assess your mental state."

"Dr. Cranston, I'm not suicidal. I swear."

"I know you're not but that doesn't mean everything's ok. You told Doctor Mallard that you'd do whatever it takes to do your job, to catch criminals."

"Yes, that's part of the job description."

"But at the risk of your own life?"

"If it's between me and some witness or victim, then yes."

"That in and of itself isn't very worrisome, but the fact that you go out of your way to put yourself in danger is. I've been told that you admitted to Tony that you don't really care about your own safety. You said the same thing to me last week."

"…Yes."

"Do you see how that is concerning? Normal healthy behavior involves giving some degree of care for your personal safety."

Something flashed behind his eyes, and for a moment Rachel thought she saw his walls come down a moment before he threw them back up. Still, he sighed and ran a hand over his eyes before he said, "I can't seem to make myself care too much."

This was good. Upsetting, of course, but an actual comment on his feelings.

"Why not?" she asked, but he was already retreating back behind his defenses.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"And if something were to happen to you, how do you think your loved ones would react?"

"Well I can't imagine Sarah or my father would care," he said dryly. Dr. Cranston grimaced. She wasn't sure that was untrue, given what she'd been told about the McGee family.

"I think they would care very much," she disagreed nevertheless. "But what would happen to your team?"

"They'd be upset, but they'd move on. It's the job I picked. We are in danger sometimes. Things happen."

"That's true," Rachel said gently.

An awkward silence settled over the room. Neither one had really mentioned Kate since Tim had started seeing Dr. Cranston, and this was certainly not the best way for this talk to start.

"I'm sorry," Tim said, feeling even worse.

"No, no, I'm sorry," she assured him. "I didn't mean to make this about my sister. But let's do that. Think about how much it hurt you all to lose Kate. You're telling me your team wouldn't suffer as much if they lost you?"

Tim thought back to his discussion with DiNozzo and recalled how agitated Tony had been when he'd brought this up.

"I know, it's not that," McGee said, his voice cracking at the end.

"Then what?"

"I don't know," he reiterated, though this time there was a hint of desperation.

They talked for a few more minutes, but they didn't get much further by the time the session was over. Still, any progress was good progress in Tim's case, and Dr. Cranston was satisfied.

"I will see you Friday," she smiled, and he nodded and bid her goodnight before putting on his coat and stepping into the night. It was warm, but a drizzle had started to fall over the area. She watched him go before turning to her secretary.

"Don't make any new appointments for any Wednesday or Friday in the next few weeks," she requested. "I think I'll be seeing Agent McGee for a while."

…

The next morning, Tim entered the bullpen and placed a hot tea on Ziva's desk and a coffee on Tony's. His hair was dripping wet- the drizzle from the previous night had turned into a full blown rain that showed no sign of stopping.

"Thank you, McGee," Ziva said with a smile. It wasn't unusual for one of them to pick up breakfast or drinks for everyone, but since coming back from his mandatory "vacation," almost a full week during which time Ducky continually checked up on his exhaustion levels, Tim hadn't really left his desk for more than five minutes at a time. In fact, he'd been so focused on making up the lost days that he'd show up early and stay as late as he could before Gibbs would send him home for the night. Getting coffee for everyone didn't seem like a whole lot, but it was the first time Ziva had seen him come in at his normal time; getting coffee meant Tim was thinking about something other than work.

"No problem," he returned her smile and settled down to his desk, quickly booting up his computer and getting to work.

Tony came in a few minutes later and saw the coffee on his desk.

"Hey, thanks Ziva," DiNozzo said, putting his bag and raincoat down.

"Oh, McGee got the coffee," the ex-Mossad agent said, glancing up to gauge the senior agent's reaction.

"Thanks, Tim," Tony said in surprise. Tim had been professional and not a bit unkind to his friend, but had avoided all non-work conversation.

"No problem," McGee sent the older man a small grin before turning back to work. Before DiNozzo could use the opportunity to talk to Tim some more, the junior agent's phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Good morning Timothy,"

"'Morning, Ducky. What's up?"

"Could you come down here for a second? I'd like to talk to you."

"Sure, I'll be right down."

When McGee entered autopsy, Palmer was already out, helping Abby in her lab. (Everyone had the good grace not to tell the forensic tech what was going on with Tim's non-field duty status. Now that things seemed to be under control, there was even less reason to tell her, at least until McGee had things back to normal.)

"Hello," Ducky greeted. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Is this about my field status?" the agent asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not. I wanted to check up on how you're doing. Have you been sleeping alight?"

"Yeah, I've been feeling better."

"You look better," the doctor said, shining a light in Tim's eyes and feeling around his throat for swelling. "Be careful with this weather. You're still at risk for illness and this rain won't help."

Tim watched the older man's face as he continued his exam.

"Thanks, Ducky."

He looked up at the young man, and, seeing the look in his eyes, knew that he was being thanked for more than this quick check-up.

"You're quite welcome, my boy," he said fondly. "I'm sorry that I had to put you in such a situation."

"I understand. It's your job."

"Yes, well something tells me your time with Doctor Cranston isn't helping very much. You need to let yourself be vulnerable before anything can get better…" seeing that McGee was about to protest, he continued. "…and you should acknowledge the fact that you're in pain and not handling things very well at all."

Tim frowned. "Ducky…"

"I know, and I won't intervene any further. But I do think you should sort things out with Tony. He was acting in your best interest when he told us about your conversation from the other night."

McGee nodded. "Alright. If you say so…"

"I do. Let me know if you need anything else."

Tim thanked him again and left. Once he was alone in the elevator, he closed his eyes, thinking about how he would simultaneously thank Tony and apologize to him. At least he had all that time at his desk to plan it out.

But his cell rang the moment he exited the elevator. Stepping back behind the stairs for some privacy, McGee answered the phone with a weary, "Hello?"

"Mr. McGee?"

The young agent froze at the voice of his father's nurse. It wasn't so much that she was calling, but that she had a forced calm in her tone, one she had perfected after years as a hospice nurse.

"Yes?"

"It's…I'm afraid your father has taken a turn for the worse. I think you should come over as soon as possible."

"I'll be right there," he said, hanging up and racing to the bullpen. Tony and Ziva looked up in confusion but he didn't stop to explain. But as he headed towards the elevators, Tony followed.

"McGee?"

"Hey, Tony, I have to go. I'm sorry. My dad…he's not doing too great-"

The senior agent nodded in understanding. "Go. Do- do you need us to come?"

"No, that's okay, thanks. Can you tell Gibbs for me?"

"Yeah, sure."

McGee nodded and rushed back towards the elevator; he pressed the button several times until the doors slid open.

….

It took twenty minutes to get to his father's house, all the time McGee prayed that he wouldn't be too late.

He wasn't. His father was in bed, pale and cold, but still hanging on. The nurse let Tim in and took him to the bedroom.

"Hey Dad," he said quietly. "I'm here."

"Tim," the admiral's eyes opened as he said his son's name. This was the most they'd spoken in two weeks.

"Do you want me to call Sarah?" McGee asked and when his father nodded, he whipped out his cell and called his sister.

She didn't answer.

He stepped away from the bed, muttering to himself. He knew her schedule; Sarah didn't have class at that moment and she was always glued to her phone. She was ignoring him.

Suddenly, in the heat of this stressful situation, Tim felt very much fed up with her attitude. She could mistreat him all she wanted, and his father could too, but the man was dying and he wanted to speak with his daughter one more time before he did.

He hit the redial icon on his screen. It went straight to voicemail this time- she'd blatantly declined the call.

Fine. He'd play along. He hit redial again. She declined. He did it three more times, determined to annoy her into answering. It worked, if only just.

"What, Tim?"

"Don't you dare hang up, Sarah," he hissed as he stepped into the hallway and out of earshot from their father.

"What's wrong?" she asked fearfully, hearing the tone of his voice.

"Dad wants to talk to you," he said, reentering the bedroom and going over to the man in the bed. McGee held the phone up to his father's ear before saying, "she's on, Dad."

The admiral took as deep a breath as he could manage and began to explain to her what was going on.

Tim watched his father talk out of the corner of his eye. His dad was too weak to hold the phone himself, so this was the most privacy he could give the two of them. And damn if it didn't hurt to hear them speak this way.

Though the phone wasn't on speaker, McGee could hear his sister crying. His father soothed her, and told her how much he loved her. And while Tim felt the tears come to his eyes and the lump form in his throat, he didn't cry. Even while seeing his father in this condition, even with these circumstances, he'd been raised to be strong and stoic in front of his father. He couldn't cry.

They talked for a long while and Tim listened patiently. When his father felt too tired to continue, the two said their teary goodbyes and Tim stepped back into the hall.

"Sarah?"

"I'll be on the next flight out, ok? We'll talk then."

He let her go after that, knowing she needed time to be alone and grieve. Once his phone was back in his pocket, McGee was back at his father's side.

"Hey, Dad, stay with me," he almost whispered. The nurse came in and took the sick man's vitals before making herself scarce again.

"Tim."

"Do you need something? Do you want me to get the nurse?"

"No, no, just...Take care of your sister, alright? I know she takes after me, but she loves you. Take care of your mother and grandmother too."

"I will, I promise."

"And Tim."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"…You're welcome, Dad."

"And I'm sorry."

McGee paused. "What?"

"I'm sorry. I know I wasn't…the best father…I'm sorry. You were- are a good son. And I love you."

He couldn't help it, but several tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks. Dammit, this couldn't happen. He couldn't break down in front of his father in their last moments together. Once again, he pushed those feelings down and swallowed.

"I love you too, Dad."

They sat there, letting the quiet heal what it could in the precious few minutes they had left. And when his father's breathing slowed and his chest stopped rising and falling, Tim took a deep breath to steady himself. And the emotions didn't come.

…..

He stayed at his father's house for a few more hours, helping the nurse when possible. The Admiral had made end-of-life arrangements with his young caretaker, which made things less difficult and painful for Tim. When everything was said and done, the NCIS agent took another deep breath, but still the expected flood of emotions did not come. Or at least, he didn't allow himself to acknowledge said emotions. Good. He couldn't deal with that right now.

"Are you…can I do anything else for you?" the nurse asked, watching him carefully. She knew that the two men were estranged, but she also realized based on his level of involvement that Tim cared very much about his father. She was just expecting more of a reaction from him was all. Still, she'd seen similar calm, shocked reactions from the relatives of her patients before.

"No, no I'm fine," he said, even managing a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Thanks for everything. Call me if I need to do anything else, ok?"

He shook hands with her and left the house, hopping in his car and speeding away.

While he should have been grieving, his mind jumped into a state of ultra-efficiency, instead running a list of things that had to be done. It was a method of distraction, of course, but it did need to be done.

...Sarah was on her way, but he'd need to call his grandmother. And his mother, he supposed, should be notified. Funeral arrangements had been outlined but he needed to call the place his father selected and set a day and time…and someone the Navy would probably need to be notified of funeral details, so that they could send men to do the flag ceremony and the rifle salute...

Despite the storm, McGee continued to press on the gas, not caring how fast he was going. It was nice to drive this fast. With hardly anyone on the road he had very little to stop him. In fact, he stared out into the rain and went even faster, his eyes narrowing and his lips pressing into a thin line. This wasn't aggressive at all, really, but it was the most aggressive he'd felt in a while. He hadn't been allowed to have firing practice in weeks, he'd hardly left his desk- he had energy to burn and this was definitely helping. In fact, it felt great. He didn't care that he could get pulled over. He'd pay any fines, what did that matter? He didn't even care that he could get into an accident. So what? Who cared? In fact-

His manic thoughts were interrupted when the car jerked through a deep puddle and the steering wheel jerked with it. The car slammed into something, though he couldn't see what it was for the rain, and suddenly he was spinning. Or rather, the car was spinning before it rammed into something else and came to a complete, bone-jarring stop. McGee's last thoughts were about how predictable the whole thing was before unconsciousness took hold.


	10. Chapter 10

When the jaws of life are required to pull you from the wreckage of your own self-destructive tendencies, it's time to consider the possibility that you may have hit rock bottom.

Of course, McGee couldn't ponder anything like this while it was going on; his bouts of consciousness, which came in and out like a bad radio signal, were filled only with muffled sounds, blurry vision and breathtaking pain.

When the car went through a particularly hazardous stretch of road, the rain caused the vehicle to hydroplane before hitting the guard rail that separated the opposite lanes on the highway. It wasn't done, however, as the momentum from the scrape caused the car to spin before crashing headfirst into a pole supporting a large exit sign. People have survived far worse, of course, and Tim might have walked away without a scratch if not for the fact that he'd been going almost ninety miles per hour.

No one else was injured, but several cars stopped to help the young agent. Still, there was little they could do until real emergency technicians arrived with the materials needed to remove him from his beloved Porsche Boxster. Once the glass and metal were cleared away, the sight they found was a gruesome one. Blood covered Tim's face. A rather large piece of glass that had once been part of the windshield now rested in his shoulder- a few inches up or to the right and it would have hit his throat or his heart. One leg was wedged tight under warped metal and at least one arm was broken- and these were the injuries the ambulance workers could see at the scene…there was no telling what other damage lay beneath the surface.

Just when Tim thought he would be sucked back down into the dark, someone shined a light in his eyes. Agony exploded in his head causing him to let out a whimper. That was seriously uncalled-for pain. Someone, perhaps the person who'd shined the light in his eyes, was talking about blood loss and shock and trauma to internal organs but McGee didn't understand a word. What he did understand was the sterile, painful light of the ambulance interior and the sudden sound of frantic beeping. He listened to the beeping as it became more and more erratic, and in that moment between hearing the dull whine of a machine and closing his eyes, Tim realized that his heart had given out.

….

Two times. They'd had to restart his heart two times.

Tony sat in the waiting room of the hospital, staring at the wall ahead and willing himself not to have a full-blown panic attack.

It was a good thing that McGee had been found with his badge- when on duty, an NCIS agent's emergency contact was their team leader, so Gibbs had been the first person notified of Tim's crash. With Ziva's manic driving (which was not a comfort to Gibbs or Tony given the circumstances of Tim's accident) they arrived at the hospital only thirty minutes after McGee.

The junior agent was in surgery for two hours. Around the first hour mark, a brutally honest nurse came out and gave them an update: his heart had stopped in the ambulance, was restarted, and held on for a little while longer before the blood loss almost proved too much. Thanks to a blood transfusion and another resuscitation, he was alive.

_For now._

DiNozzo felt useless, and the irony was not lost on him.

"Doesn't feel too great, does it?"

Tony sighed. His mind never let him have a moment's peace; even when his best friend lay on an operating table fighting for his life, DiNozzo's deepest fears of losing those he cared about once again manifested in the form of Tim, who sat across from his older friend in the waiting room.

"Leave me alone," the senior agent said.

"Do I have to remind you that I'm a figment of your own imagination?"

"No. You're even more snippy than the real McGee."

The imaginary Tim's grin faltered into a menacing look. (Or as menacing as Tony could imagine McGee to be.) "You aren't asking me the most important question."

"Which is?"

With one eyebrow raised, the figment answered. "Did I do it on purpose?"

"What?"

"Did I crash that car on purpose? I mean, it's not like I've been doing all that great recently…"

"Stop. It was raining. Accidents happen."

"The police who showed up at the scene said I must have been going ninety miles per hour. I never speed."

"So you were distracted," Tony said, staring at the floor.

"Maybe. Maybe not."

This version of Tim was far more nightmarish than previous incarnations.

"You know, I think you were right. I do need to talk see someone," DiNozzo quipped, knowing full-well that he wouldn't be talking to a psychiatrist about this any time soon. This imagining of loved ones as they treaded the line between life and death- it probably wasn't normal, but Tony wasn't crazy. It was a coping mechanism- one he suspected was employed by the other members of Team Gibbs.

His thoughts were interrupted when Jethro and Ziva rejoined him in the waiting room.

"No word yet," the senior field agent informed before they could ask. "You called Sarah?"

"Yes," Ziva answered. The Israeli had been brought up to speed on McGee's situation during their drive to the hospital. While Tony hadn't been as forthcoming about Tim's mental health, he did explain how the junior agent's father was dying, and he mentioned the fact that Sarah was only making things harder on her brother. Ziva had responded in anger at the McGee family's treatment of Tim, but was relieved to find out the cause of his behavior over the previous few months.

"And?"

"She already had a flight booked for tomorrow morning."

Tony grimaced. "Does that mean…?"

"Yeah, the Admiral died a couple hours ago," Gibbs said, the poorly-concealed sadness for his agent leaking into his words.

DiNozzo sighed. He wasn't sure if this news contributed to his theory that Tim was merely distracted before his crash, or if it helped prove that he'd done it on purpose. "Damn."

"Sarah seemed very upset." Ziva said. "That McGee was hurt, I mean. Although it may have been because of her father," she finished with a hint of bitterness. Of course they all felt for the young woman- she'd lost her father that day, and now her brother was in danger. Still, even though Tim hadn't been very open about it, they could tell that her behavior hadn't been acceptable and they all resented her a bit for helping push McGee deeper into the hole he'd dug for himself. Though to be honest, none of them were all that surprised. Years back, when the junior agent put his career on the line to save her skin, she'd been less than helpful. Now, while caught up in her own grief and anger at the world, Sarah had no problem with taking it out on her brother. Yes, it was clear that she loved him and that he loved her, but they were very different and they expressed emotion in different ways. They only hoped that when they saw each other in person, the young woman might be a bit more loving to her injured sibling.

"What about his grandmother?" Gibbs asked.

"Sarah told me that Penny is out of the country on business but that she was already on her way back when Admiral McGee took a turn for the worse. She should be here some time tomorrow as well."

Good, at least the one relative Tim could count on would set things straight.

"Someone should call Rachel," Tony muttered.

"What was that, DiNozzo?"

"Someone should call Doctor Cranston," the agent said, looking up at his Boss.

"Already did," Gibbs assured him. "Ducky called her as soon as I told him about McGee. She'll be here when she's done with patients."

"Are Palmer and Ducky on their way?" Ziva asked.

"They're telling Abby," Gibbs frowned. He'd wanted to tell the forensic tech himself, but the team had been out the door the moment they'd heard what happened. "They'll all be over later."

The three agents sat and waited for another thirty minutes before the doctor in charge of Tim's operation emerged. The man looked so haggard that for a moment they were convinced that McGee didn't make it.

"No, no, he pulled through," the surgeon said assured them. "Agent McGee's a fighter, that much is certain. But I'm afraid he's not out of the woods yet."

He went on to explain that the junior agent's leg had been broken in multiple places (the entire front of his car was crushed) but that it would make a full recovery. His nose was broken by the airbag and, multiple pieces of glass had embedded themselves in his face, but these would heal completely as well. However, that was the extent of the good news. Because of his velocity before impact, the crash had inflicted serious damage on several major internal organs in McGee's torso. Ribs were broken, and one lung collapsed; both were far more treatable than the massive internal bleeding in his stomach. Also, a rather large shard of glass had torn up Tim's shoulder. Naturally, the concussion the agent had suffered was the most concerning, though not for the expected reasons.

"Last time he was here he had a concussion," the doctor said, looking at the chart in front of him. "And there was a seizure. The concussion he has now is much, much worse. We're working on keeping the swelling down, but there was some bleeding earlier. If that doesn't come up again, he shouldn't suffer any permanent brain damage- he's lucky the air bag went off and stopped things from moving any further. If he'd struck the wheel he most likely would have been pronounced at the scene."

Tony suppressed a shudder.

"Still, the thing we're most worried about is a seizure. It would be fairly expected given the injury to his brain, but if he does have another one it would be disastrous to his heart and the rest of his organs. The stitches would most likely open up again, and quite frankly he couldn't survive another resuscitation."

Seeing the expressions on the agents' faces, he continued. "But considering he's survived this far, I'd say he has a chance. And I've seen people in far worse condition make a full recovery. Whatever the reason was for his crash, I'd say he definitely isn't ready to let go yet."

"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.

"Not yet, I'm afraid we're still cleaning him up and we need to put him under close observation for at least an hour to make sure there aren't any complications. But as soon as that's done, he'll be moved to a room in the ICU and you'll be able to see him. I'll have a nurse come get you when that happens."

They thanked the doctor and he left them alone to their thoughts.

"He will be fine," Ziva put her hand on Tony's shoulder. "That all sounded bad together, but each of those things is very easily treated. We have all suffered each of those injuries."

"Not at the same time," DiNozzo said, not bothering to keep the pessimism out of his voice. Gibbs gave him a soft headslap in admonishment- it wasn't meant to hurt, but just to remind the senior agent to keep it together.

"Sorry, Boss," Tony murmured. "Well, I guess we've got some time. I don't know about you but I need a coffee."

They went to the cafeteria to find caffeine, where they were eventually joined by Jimmy, Ducky, and a near-hysterical Abby. They informed the three about Tim's injuries and the fact that his father died, though everyone who knew about McGee's therapy with Dr. Cranston kept it quiet, not wanting to further upset Abby (or Palmer, who suspected something was wrong given Ducky's behavior towards McGee over the past few weeks, though he said nothing).

"Poor McGee," the goth sniffed, not even finding it in her to use the affectionate "Timmy" for her beloved friend.

"He'll recover," Ducky said, sending a glance at Tony. "As long as he has the will, he can pull through."

DiNozzo could tell that the elderly ME was also wondering whether the accident had truly been an accident, or if the agent had done it on purpose.

Soon after, a nurse came to inform them that they could see Tim, and she led them up to his room, warning them that his appearance would be a bit of a shock. And it was.

DiNozzo had visited many people in the hospital over the years- mostly members of his team or civilians tied up in one of their cases. He'd also been in the hospital many times, as his own medical record wasn't quite pristine. Still, he was never really prepared to see the injuries of a friend for the first time, no matter how vehemently a nurse or doctor warned him that the sight would be unpleasant. It always was, but it was somehow always worse than he expected.

McGee looked more dead than alive. Every inch of him that wasn't covered in bandages had a tube hooked up to it, or was covered in nasty bruises. Most of his head and face, including his eyes, were under gauzy wrappings for protection. Abby did her best to hold in the sobs, and even Ziva looked a little misty-eyed. Still, their friend was alive, and he'd hate the idea of them crying over him, so they each steeled their nerves as they reconvened in the hall. Ducky stayed behind a minute to check Tim's IVs and read his chart, though it was more for his own benefit than for McGee's.

"He looks awful," Abby said, not bothering to stop the flow of tears. Her mascara and eyeliner were not holding up, but no one really noticed.

"How bad is it?" a new voice asked. Gibbs turned to see Rachel, who approached them slowly, knowing that she was a bit of an outsider here.

"Dr. Cranston," Ducky greeted quickly, though that didn't stop Abby from rushing forward once she recognized Kate's sister and embracing her.

"What are you doing here?" the goth asked.

The psychiatrist paused. Abby was no fool, so skirting around the question wouldn't work. But it also wasn't her right to inform anyone that McGee was her patient, even if that was the least of his problems at the moment. In truth, she'd grown attached to Tim, and felt it her duty as one of his doctors to check up on him…especially since she too wondered if his crash was more than a case of slippery pavement. While she had been sure he wasn't suicidal, she now had some doubts.

"I've been helping Tim with his father's illness," she said. This seemed to take the heat off of McGee's mental state, as the NCIS employees all shared uncomfortable looks. "Why do I feel like I'm missing something?"

"His dad died today," Tony said, giving Rachel a look that suggested that he was also concerned about the exact causes of McGee's accident.

"Oh," she deflated a bit at the news. Everyone had expected Admiral McGee to hang on for at least another couple of months, and Dr. Cranston had hoped to help Tim prepare for that eventuality. "Has his sister been informed? About both things, I mean."

"Yes, she's on her way from California," Ziva said. "She should be here tomorrow some time."

"I'll make sure to be here when she arrives," Rachel responded. Ziva, Tony, and Gibbs all had identical expressions on their faces that told her they had no intention of leaving Sarah alone with McGee, even if he was unconscious for the entirety of her visit. It seemed that every single member of Tim's support system had varying amounts of knowledge as to his current situation, but none of them felt comfortable sharing with anyone else. She and DiNozzo were the only ones who'd actually spoken to McGee about all of this, and while she was bound by law to keep quiet, Tony was bound by his own guilt not to reveal any more than he already had.

"So will we," Gibbs nodded. Rachel hoped she wouldn't have to mediate between the agents and Sarah, as her main concern was patching up the relationship between the siblings. As Tim's friend she wanted to give the young college student a piece of her mind, but the doctor in her remembered that Sarah McGee was a scared, confused, grieving young woman who was going through a whole hell of a lot.

After a long, painstaking night vigil, the agents were all exhausted, their nerves worn thin. Dr. Cranston, the MEs and Abby had all gone home a few hours after they arrived, since they were all still required to show up to work. Vance allowed the MCRT to take the next couple of days off, at least until McGee was awake for any given amount of time. His doctors put him on a steady regiment of pain medications and strong sedatives, keeping the agent under until the swelling in his brain was down completely. Normally they would allow him to wake up so that they might determine the full effects of his concussion, but with the combined strain of his recovering lung and stomach it seemed unwise to rouse him, during which time he might panic and hurt himself further. Also, his heart was still technically recovering from the trauma it had suffered. It would be cruel to subject Tim to the pain of consciousness, even with the hard drugs coursing through his system. No, a small, medically-induced coma would be far more comfortable.

Still, after only twelve hours the swelling in his brain had improved exponentially.

"There's no bleeding either, which is a miracle," the doctor informed them. "He's really, really fighting here. I'd say it's safe to declare him 'out of the woods,' though we're not going to wake him up until the ruptured blood vessels in his stomach have recovered a bit, though that should only be another day or so. After that we can keep him under observation, and once his stomach and lung are stable, he can go. The breaks in his leg with require some physical therapy, and the wound in his shoulder will take some time to heal, but everything else should be back to normal within a few weeks."

It was probably for the better that he remain unconscious, as later that afternoon, Sarah McGee arrived at the hospital, teary-eyed and close to collapse from grief and lack of sleep.

By that time, Rachel had returned to the waiting room to sit with the agents. They all stood when Sarah walked through the doors, each one of them fighting to keep the resentment off their faces.

"Hi," she said softly. "How's Tim? Can I see him?"

"He's still under," Ziva spoke first. "He's been through a lot."

Sarah could feel the implication like a slap across the face but she did not flinch.

Dr. Cranston stepped forward. "Hi Sarah, it's nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Cranston, one of Tim's…friends. How about I take you to see him and we can talk about how he's doing?"

With a cautious glance at the agents, the brunette nodded and followed the psychiatrist into McGee's room. Upon the first glimpse of her brother, Sarah burst into tears. Her sobs disturbed the unnatural stillness of the space, and Rachel put her arms around the young woman. Ziva, Tony, and Gibbs stood outside to watch and for the first time they really felt bad for Sarah. She had lost her father the day before, and now her brother was in the hospital after a dangerous brush with death. Still, someone had to put her in her place for the way she'd treated Tim. They just decided to wait for the right time.

"How bad is he, Doctor?" Sarah asked between gasps for breath. Rachel realized that the younger woman thought she was McGee's physician, but decided that correcting her just now wasn't a good idea. Instead she repeated the report they had been given by his actual attending doctor.

"He should make a full recovery," she soothed, rubbing Sarah's back. "But why don't we go back out into the hall for a minute?"

Dr. Cranston led Sarah back into the waiting room and took her to a seat. The agents sat around them.

"I can't believe this is happening," the young woman cried, her face in her hands. "I feel so terrible."

"Why is that?" Rachel prodded softly, though they all knew the answer.

"I've…I…" Sarah couldn't continue in between breaths.

"You two have been having some trouble, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"You've made McGee's life even more difficult than it already was," Ziva interjected. Sarah sucked in a breath in surprise.

"What?"

Tony and Rachel both sent her glances, trying to get her to back off, but Ziva paid no mind. Gibbs waited to see if things would get more heated before putting a stop to it.

"McGee has been helping your father and going through all the same things you have, as well as things you cannot even imagine at work and in his personal life. Things he carried by himself- he wouldn't even tell us what was wrong because he was so worried about burdening us! And you made things even worse for him!"

Sarah stared at the agent, eyes wide, tears still running down her face. She wasn't so much surprised to hear about her brother's problems as she was to be called out on them so fiercely by his coworker. No one else spoke, instead curious to see where this discussion would go.

"I…I know. I was just so angry," she said, attempting to control the persistent sobs.

"You owe him so much more than an apology," Ziva continued. "He's done so much for you and your father these past few months. We are all very sorry for your loss," now her voice went from angry to a far more gentle, understanding tone. "But McGee went through it as well. Trust me when I say I understand that grief can cause a person to do crazy things..."

Rachel looked down, thinking of how she'd missed her own sister's funeral because of her grief. Tony looked over at Ziva, remembering the way she'd beat him up and knocked him to the ground for killing Michael Rivkin. Still, Ziva continued.

"But your family is all you have left, especially now that your father has passed away. Tim has put his life and career on the line for you more than once. If you don't change your attitude towards him, you're going to lose your brother. You don't know how many times you've come to losing him in the past few months alone. And even if he's too kind to send you away, we will do it for him because we care about him. Trust me when I say losing a sibling is even worse than losing a parent."

Her calm but threatening words inspired a fresh round of tears in Sarah.

"I'm sorry!" she wailed. "I'm sorry…"

A small grin played at the corner of Gibbs' mouth. He was never more proud of his kids than when they had moments like these. Tony and Dr. Cranston looked at the ex-Mossad agent, impressed.

"Make sure you tell that to McGee," Ziva said, putting her arm around Sarah and giving a quick squeeze.

"I will," Sarah hiccuped.

…..

The next evening, the doctors weaned Tim off of the sedatives and slowly brought him from his coma. The swelling was mostly gone and he would be coherent.

The doctor decided to allow one person in the room; since there would be a swarm of medical professionals there when he woke up, it seemed that one familiar face would be good for McGee.

By default it would be Sarah, but after Ziva set her straight, she'd done little more than cry and sleep and feel guilty for what she'd done to her brother. The lecture had knocked her down a peg, but in the best possible way.

"I don't think I should be the first person he sees," the young woman said to Gibbs when they were informed of how the whole process would go. "I mean, I totally want to see him, but I've been so hard on him these past few weeks... I don't think seeing me right away would be the most reassuring thing for him."

Jethro nodded, very much impressed with this show of maturity. He looked over to where Tony sat against the wall, staring into space. The senior agent, despite hearing the positive reports of Tim's recovery, was anxious for his friend.

"DiNozzo."

"Yeah Boss?" the younger man looked up.

"You go in first."

Tony looked genuinely surprised by the suggestion. "Are you sure, Boss? Sarah, are you okay with that?"

She gave a little smile and nodded. "You're Tim's best friend. Right now you deserve it more than me."

None of them, except perhaps Dr. Cranston, who sat nursing a cup of coffee, knew how true that statement was. She planned for this to be her last day of hospital visits- she knew that Tim liked her but was still very guarded around her. The doctor decided that once she was satisfied that he was stable for the time being, she would back off and give him space until he was out of the hospital and rested enough to continue their sessions together.

"Are we ready?" McGee's physician stuck his head into the waiting room.

Tony stood. "Yeah, let's do it."

The man looked in confusion at Sarah and Gibbs, but they both nodded, so he turned back to DiNozzo.

"Alright, we're waking him up now. We just got the tube out of his throat, so he might not be able to talk. I'll have a nurse bring some ice chips once I've made sure that he's coherent."

The actual waking up part was painful for everyone involved. Tim moaned and blinked against the hash fluorescent light and even attempted to struggle against the many bandages and tubes that held him down, but seemingly every fiber of his being exploded in pain at the slightest movement. Tony grimaced watching the recognition and remembrance light up behind his friend's eyes as the doctor flashed a light in his eyes and asked him questions. When it was over, Tony came forward and put himself in McGee's line of sight.

"Hey Tim. It's me."

The junior agent attempted to speak, but little more than a croak came out.

"…H'y."

"You really gave us a scare there, McGee."

"…S'rry."

"Don't apologize man, you just gotta stop doing this to us."

Tony waited until the doctors and nurses were finished and left them alone before speaking again. "That was a hell of a crash you went through."

He knew McGee wasn't ready to talk about the intentions (or lack thereof) behind the crash, so he saved that for later. "Everyone wants to see you. Think you got the energy for it?"

"'K," he said, his eyes drifting closed.

"Your sister's here."

His eyes snapped open again though he said nothing.

"She wants to talk to you, ok?"

Tim gave his friend a wary look but didn't protest. With a reassuring nod, Tony stuck his head out into the hall and gestured for Sarah to follow him back into the room. When she went up to her big brother, the guarded look in his eyes brought the tears back to her own.

"Oh, Tim…" she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry…"

She reached out carefully and took his hand, almost expecting him to move his hand away. But instead he squeezed back and the corners of his eyes lit up more than they had in a while. This prompted still more tears from Sarah, who grabbed his hand with both of hers and sat next to his bed, crying and apologizing.

"Well, I'll be checking in on him over the next few weeks. Give me a call once he's cleared to go back to work and we'll continue our sessions," Dr. Cranston said to Gibbs as they watched the touching scene through the observation window.

"Think he'll actually talk to you now?" the team leader asked, not taking his eyes off of McGee.

"Oh, no. While this is a great improvement, it most likely won't change the way he deals with emotions, nor will it help with his self image," Rachel said, smiling all the while.

Gibbs finally looked at her, one eyebrow quirked. "Then why so happy about it?"

"Your agent gave me an idea of how to get him to open up."

"Who, DiNozzo?"

"No," she said, looking up at him. "Ziva."


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks to every reader who has patiently stuck with this story, and a double thank you to those who have reviewed! Enjoy this last chapter, guys. Let me know what you think!**

**...**

**1 Month Later**

"Sarah, you don't have to push me around, I'm perfectly capable of using crutches!" Tim protested as his sister directed his wheelchair into his apartment.

"You say that now, but tomorrow when I'm gone you're gonna miss having the luxury of wheeling around like an old lady," she teased.

After two weeks, McGee was released from the hospital and into the care of his sister, who'd made a deal with her professors and was making up her missed work through email. At first it was wonderful- with Sarah so determined to make up for her behavior and their shared bonding of mourning their father, the two became closer than they had in years. But her finals were only a few weeks away and Tim refused to let his sister stay with him when she should have been spending the last month of the semester focusing on her classes. This wasn't undergrad business, no- she was working on a graduate degree and there was no way that any more time away from school would be acceptable. Tim insisted she return, despite her wishes, although now that his leg was the only persisting injury, he argued that he could get around just fine.

"It's not like you'd be able to wheel me around at work," he grumbled. "Even if I am still gonna be stuck at my desk."

"Well tomorrow's your first day back- you should probably take it slow anyway." When she noticed that he wasn't listening, she jostled the chair slightly to get his attention. "Hey, your cast comes off in two weeks. You can survive that long, right?" she asked. Tim had elected not to tell Sarah about his own emotional problems; in fact, he hadn't given it much thought at all. Which, of course, wasn't good. He still forewent actual grieving for his dad while he focused on recovery…Dr. Cranston was right, this hadn't changed things for him all that much. In fact, this dependence on his sister and his team had begun to reinforce all of his negative self-image problems.

"Yeah, sure. I guess."

"Don't pout," Sarah smiled. "At least you're doing what you love. And if you need anything, you know I can come right back-"

"No, it's fine. If I need anything I'll call Penny or Tony."

Sarah stopped and walked around the chair to face him. "Please promise that if you do need something you will actually call them, ok? You've always been the type to keep it all in. Even Ziva mentioned it when you were in the hospital."

"I promise."

She patted his shoulder and went to make them dinner. Tim sighed and scooted himself out of his chair and onto the couch. Gibbs had agreed that McGee could return to work the next day, as long as he also went back to seeing Dr. Cranston at the same time. So he had a full day of desk duty and crutches, followed by therapy in the evening. Not exactly the return to NCIS he'd been expecting, though once again, any work would be better than sitting alone in his apartment.

...

Rachel finished the last of her coffee and tossed the cup into the trash before turning back to the file on her desk. Tim McGee would be there any moment and she needed all the caffeine she could get- this was his first therapy session in a while... It was the first time they'd be speaking since his accident, the first time they'd be speaking since his father died. They had a lot to cover, and Dr. Cranston had an idea of how to finally get Agent McGee to open up to her. It would be a risk, but one worth taking, and she'd stay up all night talking to him if she had to…Hence the extra cup of coffee.

Her little intercom buzzed, and her assistant let her know that Tim was on his way in. Rachel stood and smiled when the door opened. Her secretary held the door open while the agent navigated his way in on crutches and over to the couch.

"Hey Dr. Cranston."

"Hello Tim. How are you feeling?"

"Better than I felt a few weeks ago," he said, a small smile on his face as he eased himself down and placed his crutches on the floor. Rachel studied him carefully as she sat. He looked so much healthier; it was clear he'd caught up on his sleep in his time off. Still, there was that trademark air of exhaustion about him, his eyes were still haunted quite a bit. But of course, that's where she came in.

"I haven't seen you since you were in the hospital," Dr. Cranston said. Tim's brow furrowed.

"You were there? I don't remember…"

"It's okay, I was only there when you were unconscious. I spoke with your sister and your team a little bit. They were very worried about you. Is Sarah staying with you right now?"

"Well, she stayed with me ever since I got out of the hospital. She went back to school today."

Rachel brightened at that. "How have things been between you two?"

Tim's small smile was the most genuine feeling the psychiatrist had ever gotten from her patient. "Much better, actually…" his face darkened in realization. "You didn't tell her about our sessions, did you? I didn't want her to know."

"No, I didn't," she assured him. "I'm obligated not to tell anyway. I just mentioned that I was helping you with your father's illness. It was Ziva who called her out on her behavior, as a matter of fact."

"Ziva? How did she-"

"I think she sort of sensed it. Your sister was feeling very guilty, and your team mentioned that she should have treated you better. I think that, and your accident, put her priorities in order."

Tim looked a bit perturbed by the fact that his team had been discussing his relationship with his sister, but nodded. "Whatever she did, it worked. Sarah's been great. She apologized and we sort of talked through things."

Rachel smiled. She was fairly certain that "talking through things" did not involve Tim opening up to Sarah the way he should have. "I'm glad to hear you're talking through things with someone. I wish you'd talk through things with me."

McGee's ears tinged pink. She'd called him on his fib and they both knew it. "Sorry Dr. Cranston…I really…." he trailed off, at a loss for words.

"It's okay, Tim," she soothed. "There's still that wall there. I understand. Let's try to work through it tonight, hm?"

"I don't think that will help to be honest."

"But I'll bet you really want to be cleared for duty," she countered. McGee sighed.

"Yeah."

"Ok. So overall, you're happy with how your relationship with your sister has progressed?"

"Oh yeah. We're closer than we have been in a long time."

"Good. If something about that changes, let me know and we'll go back to it. Now let's talk about your father's death. How are you doing with that?"

"Fine," he said. It was clearly a lie.

"Fine?" she asked gently, prompting him forward.

"Well, I mean, it was sudden. I thought he had at least another month. And I won't lie, it hurts that he's gone. He was a good man. He wasn't always a good dad, but he was always the first to admit that. I don't think an extra month would have changed anything between us."

"You were with him when he died, yes?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to answer if you don't want, but did he say anything special to you before he passed away?"

"…He thanked me for helping him, and he said that he loved me."

"He told you he loved you?" Rachel confirmed. "When was the last time you heard that from him?"

McGee swallowed. "I don't remember."

Rachel nodded, letting his response hang in the air between them. "How did it make you feel?" When he looked like he might not answer, she pressed on. "Tim? Talk to me this time."

"It felt good, but it hurt." McGee rushed out. "I think he meant it, but I'm…I'm angry that it took him so long to figure it out."

"Good, that's great that you're being honest with me. Now, how have you been dealing with the fact that he's gone? I know that you were never that close, but I'm sure it hurts."

"Yeah. It does. A lot."

"But you're no stranger to grief and pain," Rachel began.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've been miserable for months, hiding things inside, carrying it all with you." McGee looked away, so Dr. Cranston decided that it was time to put her plans in action. Praying that it would work, she asked "Is that why you crashed your car out on the road? As an outlet for your misery?"

Tim's widened eyes snapped back to hers. "What?"

"No one wanted to mention it, but it was clear that some of your team members wondered if you crashed your car on purpose."

Something flashed in his eyes. "Tony, I'll bet."

"I don't know about Agent DiNozzo, but I certainly wondered. You still haven't answered my question."

"No! I didn't crash my car on purpose. It was an accident."

"You were going ninety miles an hour, Tim," Rachel accused. She felt terrible for doing this, but she could already see that it was working.

"I was distracted and angry and I was expending some energy."

"But you could have died. Did you ever think about that?"

"I considered it," he said, becoming annoyed.

"But you didn't care?"

"At the time, no. But I didn't mean to crash like that. I was just angry and feeling too much. I was distracted."

Rachel sat back as she waited for McGee to realize what he'd said. "You were feeling too much?" he nodded and in the back of her mind, she rejoiced. She knew what she meant and knew how to work with someone like this. "Let me try and guess what you've been feeling…so after all that you've been through, you're hurt and angry and full of stress. So, so much stress. Am I correct so far?" He nodded. "And there's pain. Your heart hurts so much your chest feels like it might burst. You carry the weight in your shoulders, both emotionally and physically, so you're exhausted. But most nights you can't sleep. Because your mind just won't stop thinking. About everything. About what's going on in your life. Right?" He nodded again, though she noticed that this time his eyes were shut in pain. But she continued. "You can't do much for your father, so you're desperate to do something. To make up for it. And even more, when you're actively working, your brain is strangely calm. It's less painful when you are keeping busy, so that's what you do. It consumes you…and there's still so much pain, and you didn't think you could feel this much pain, because you're feeling so much, so many different emotions."

Several tears slipped out from Tim's closed eyelids, but he whispered a broken "yes."

"So you choose, instead, to feel nothing. To try and feel nothing. And you're desperate to be helpful, to work, and to hold on to those few things you have left. So you'd throw yourself in front of your friends to save them. If you die, then you wouldn't be so bothered by it because you'd feel nothing. But in a good way. Am I on the right track?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, opening his eyes. More tears escaped and ran down his face.

"Ok. With this in mind, think back to your car accident. You didn't care about yourself, but what if you'd hurt someone else? What if you'd hit another car and injured that person?"

The horrified look on McGee's tear-streaked face told her that he hadn't considered it.

"I never thought about it."

"I know, and that's okay. But you could have killed someone, Tim. You and your car were dangerous in that moment, not because you wanted to hurt someone, but because you didn't care for yourself. You were so caught up in your pain, which I understand perfectly, but you were so distracted that you were a danger to others. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, and I'm sorry."

"Okay, now consider this. Your car is an everyday tool, a vehicle. Your job requires the thing you're so concerned about right now: your gun. I know you're not a violent man, I know you hate killing people, so you of all people are most qualified to carry a badge and a gun. But if your emotions can get the best of you while in your car, think about how you might be with your weapon. You almost killed yourself, and could have killed someone else, completely on accident, with your car. Imagine how you might be with a weapon in your hands. I'm not saying you would turn it on yourself or on an innocent person, but in your emotional state, with your distraction, you might be a danger to yourself or to others the way you were during your accident. Does that make sense? Do your understand why you should not be permitted to carry your weapon or enter the field?"

McGee swallowed a violent sob in an attempt to keep it together. "Yeah, I understand. I do."

Finally, there was some clarity. Now that he accepted that much, she could continue.

"Ok, now that you understand, let's tackle why you feel this way."

"I think you pretty much covered it," he said, running a hand over his face.

"Alright, but it's a serious problem that you won't let yourself feel anything. I can tell that it's more about the fact that you're feeling so much that you'd rather shut the whole thing down, because all of your thoughts and emotions are tangled up in a sort of knot. So I want you to acknowledge your feelings. I want you to let yourself feel them."

He hesitated, so she said, "I know it's hard and scary, and I know it's going to hurt. But your depression now hurts far more than what you will feel when you've gotten through this. Let yourself feel."

"I don't know how…" he admitted quietly.

"That's okay, I'll help you. Tell me each emotion that you're experiencing right at this moment."

"I feel…scared."

"Why? What are you scared about?"

"I'm scared that I could have killed someone last month, or anytime before that. I'm scared because I know that cancer has a genetic component to it, and that now my sister is possibly at risk. And I am too. I'm scared that I'm never going to get my job back to the way it was, that I'm going to be like this forever."

"Good. What else are you feeling?"

"Angry."

"Why?"

"I'm angry that my dad was a pretty terrible father and even on his deathbed all he could manage was a quick apology and an 'I love you'. I'm mad that Sarah tried to heap all of her grief onto me. I'm angry that I'm stuck at my damn desk every day at work. I'm pissed because I'm stuck with these stupid crutches for at least two more weeks and I can only blame myself."

So much rage coursed from his body that Dr. Cranston thought he might actually throw something. This might scare a normal person, but she had to fight the urge to celebrate.

"What else?"

"I'm grieving. I'm sad because my dad is dead, and my girlfriend broke up with me. And there was nothing I could do about either one. I'm upset because I've been carrying this around for so long. I'm upset that I worried and pushed away people who I care about and who tried to help me, and I'm upset that I can't be bothered to feel more than passing care about my own wellbeing..." Without further prompting from Rachel, he switched to his next emotion. The tears were now coursing down his face, and he listed through several more problems he was dealing with before ending up at his most troublesome.

"I feel pain. All the time. In my chest, in my head, everywhere. I'm in pain because…because I know I'm not doing okay, that I'm struggling, because I still feel useless."

"Why do you feel useless?" Dr. Cranston asked.

"It's something my dad called me once, a long time ago, when I refused to join the navy. It didn't bother me again until when he started hospice, and Sarah mentioned that I was useless if I wasn't going to help save him. And then he started dying, and I really couldn't do anything about it, and I felt unneeded. It sort of crossed over into everything else, and then, like you said, I needed to do something to put meaning and purpose back into my life."

McGee was clearly fighting back powerful emotions even still, with his head bent and his eyes cast onto the floor. Rachel sighed softly.

"Tim, don't fight it. Let it out. I'm not going to judge you. But I need you to know that you are not actually useless. You are loved and cared for very much…"

The agent broke down and began to cry. It wasn't loud weeping the way his sister expressed her sadness. Rather, it was near silent. The only sounds he emitted were the gasping breaths he took in between each sob. With his face in his hands, Tim cried for several minutes. Her own eyes misty, Rachel went over and sat next to him on the couch, careful to leave a generous amount of space between them. She made it a personal rule to only touch clients if the touch was needed and therapeutic. McGee had closed himself off to everyone for months now, so even though his sister and his friends may have come into contact with him in some way, this was the first time in a very long time that he'd been open and real with anyone. So she carefully, ever so gently, put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't move away, and in fact leaned into it slightly, so Dr. Cranston knew she'd made the right choice.

"It's alright," she assured him. "This is good. Let it out."

They sat there quietly for several minutes, her comforting him as he expelled all of the pent up emotions he'd felt for far too long. When he had finished, they sat and talked about little things, about how all the good aspects of Tim's life, about the people he loved and cared about and who cared about him. When they discussed his team, McGee frowned.

"I'd never have done this if they hadn't made me."

"I understand. But good thing they did, right? It seems that Agent DiNozzo played a big part in getting you here."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I was mad at him for telling Gibbs, but I know that he had to."

"You'd do the same for him I'd bet."

"Yeah, I would," he sighed. "I think I owe him an apology."

"Honestly, Tim, I don't think you own anyone anything. Except for yourself. But I do think you should talk to Tony. He was very worried about you. I think we made some real progress today. Do you feel any better?"

"Yes." For the first time in a long time, he did feel something close to alright. "Thank you so much."

"It's my job," she smiled warmly.

...

McGee pulled out of the driveway to Dr. Cranston's practice and rolled his shoulders. He was almost sore after that intense session- he wanted nothing more than to go home and fall right into bed. But it wasn't that late, so he wanted to do one more thing that night before he could really get a good night's sleep.

It was a short ride from Rachel's business to Tony's apartment, even with his ultra-cautious driving habits. He hoped that DiNozzo would be home; there was once a time that on a nice night like that one, the senior agent would be out on the town. But those days were behind them, and Tony was indeed in his apartment. When McGee knocked, he waited for a minute, suddenly nervous as if he were a Probe again. Why? He didn't have any reason to be! But he was. Before he could second-guess himself and turn around, the door swung open to reveal the senior agent, whose eyes lit up in confusion and surprise when he saw his friend, whose eyes were still a bit red from crying.

"McGee... What's up? Everything okay?"

"Yeah, sorry to come over like this, but can we talk for a minute?"

"Of course," Tony said, snapping out of his surprised freeze. "Sorry, I just haven't actually seen you since you were in the hospital."

After McGee was released into his sister's care, he'd spent most of his time resting, recuperating, and working through physical therapy. Everyone from the team had dropped in at least once, and some (Abby) multiple times a week. This was great, but none of them ever got much of a chance to talk with Tim for a long period of time, as he was usually exhausted and asleep by the time they got off of work.

"Yeah, guess that's my fault," the junior agent said sheepishly. "Sorry."

"No, don't be sorry," DiNozzo said quickly, going to the kitchen and retrieving a couple of beers.

"Actually, that's why I came over," McGee said, balancing on his crutches but still managing to reach up and scratch the back of his head. "I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for reacting the way I did when you told Gibbs about our talk. And for kind of ignoring... avoiding you after that. That was immature."

"I don't blame you at all," Tony shook his head. "I would have reacted the same way."

"I know, but still. I…I wanted to thank you. If you hadn't said anything, I'd probably be dead right now." He ignored DiNozzo's pained, panicked expression and continued. "I had a session with Dr. Cranston today...and I guess it went well because I'm in a ton of pain." Even as he said it, Tim gave a lopsided but genuine grin. At DiNozzo's confused look, he frowned. "She sort of forced me to talk, and I finally stopped resisting, so we sort of…tore everything open."

Now the older man understood. Tim had been ignoring his wounds so much that they'd healed wrong, like a bone that is never set properly. Rachel must have encouraged him to open up the wound so that they could set the bone the right way. They might have to re-break it first, and it may hurt like hell, but now true healing could begin.

"I'm proud of you, McGee," Tony lightly clapped Tim on his shoulder. "I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that."

"No, I'm glad you guys forced me into seeing Rachel. I never would have gone otherwise, and I didn't realize how much I needed it until today." The junior agent's face crumpled with the memory of the session that had just ended; he looked so distressed that DiNozzo became concerned.

"You okay, Tim?"

"No," McGee croaked, closing his eyes again. At this, Tony pulled him in for a hug. It was far more comforting and less awkward than the one they'd had all those days and weeks before.

"I'm not okay, not at all," the younger man said. "But I'm getting there. I didn't realize how much I'd worried you all. And how much I put you in danger. I'm sorry." A few more tears escaped his eyes, just when he thought he was all cried-out.

"No, it's not your fault, Tim," Tony said, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. "You have nothing to apologize for."

They sat there, two agents, drinking beer and each trying not to cry like little girls. Since it was still early, Tony decided to order a pizza and demanded that McGee stay for a movie. When the film was done, DiNozzo looked over to see his younger friend asleep in his spot on the sofa. Pulling a blanket over him, the senior agent decided not to disturb him, knowing that even on the couch, his best friend would sleep better that night than he had in half a year, because finally, Tim was safe.

And his friend's safety, well... that was more than enough.


End file.
